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le Call of tl 



By WALTER ttOGAN 




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Photographed by request Chamber of Commerce Petaluma, California. 

These hens weighed less than four pounds each, and laid 131 pounds > 
^ z. of eggs. They won the prize for laying the greatest weight in eggs 'in 
the national egg laying contest. Each hen's eggs would have sold for $5 40 
on the letaluma market if reduced to No. 1 eggs. They are the result of 
%irT T^^^'""^ ^y the author from common Petaluma Single Comb 

llTl Tn\. " '' ^°''^^'" ^°'' '^" '^^^^' *° ^« the same with almost 
any breed by followmg instructions in this book. 



The Call of the Hen 



Or the Science of the 



Selection and Breeding of Poultry 



BY 



WALTER HOGAN 



Copyrighted 1913 in the United States and Canada, Great Britain, 
Australia, New Zealand, France, Germany, and Denmark. 
(All Rights Reserved.) 



PETALUMA, CALIFORNIA: 

THE PETALUMA DAILY COUPTER 

1913 




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FOREWORD 



The writer's introduction into poultry keeping was in the 
city of Boston, Massachusetts, in the autumn of 1857. By the 
spring of '68 I had a flock of nearly 400 birds, among them 
a lot of the best Single Comb White Leghorns that I could 
find. I went in person to New York City to get them. My 
friends thought such extensive poultry keeping the limit of 
folly, and freely remarked that I was going crazy. In those 
days eggs were almost worthless during the spring and sum- 
mer months, but would often sell for fifty cents per dozen 
in the winter. This set me to thinking that perhaps it might 
be possible to increase the egg yield in the winter, and by so 
doing, make the fad a better paying proposition. Through 
my experiments I found that all hens were not alike, that 
some would be very good table fowl and poor layers. Others* 
would be very good layers and poor table fowl while still other 
hens would be very fair table fowl and very fair layers. At this 
time we had all the old fashioned breeds we could get, and 
discarded them all for the Single Comb White and Brown 
Leghorns. I had decided that knowledge was of commercial 
value only when applied, and having a working knowledge of 
the anatomy and physiology of the hen, I decided to try 
to turn the same to a commercial account, and in a couple of 
years had evolved what is now known as the Walter Hogan 
System, which consists of ascertainng the value of a hen for 
the purpose you desire, by the relative thickness of and dis- 
tance apart of the pelvic bones. Before 1873 I had communi- 
cated this discovery to some of my friends under promise of 
secrecy. One of them, Albert Brown, once a well known 
banker of Amesbury, Mass., and H. O. Farrar, of the same 
place, an overseer in the Hamilton Mills, and a light Brahma 
specialist. After using the above so called system for a num- 
ber of years, I developed a new method which I have taught 
in part privately for some years, and which I now introduce 



THE CALL OF THE HEN, 7- 

to the public under the title of "The Call of the Hen," or "The 
Science of Selecting and Breeding Poultry." 

My friends early prophesied that my penchant for inven- 
tion would land me in the poor house in my old age. So by 
some occult inspiration I was induced to abstain from publish- 
ing any part of my discoveries until 1904, when, by the advise 
of Ex-Congressman Haldor E. Boen, of Minnesota, to whom 
I had confided my poultry secrets some years previous, I de- 
cided to publish only my first discovery, known as the "Walter 
Hogan System," (which will be found in the latter part of this 
work), after the same had been tested at the Minnesota State 
Experimental Station by Professor Hoverstadt, the Superin- 
tendent of the station. However, before taking any steps to 
bring this matter before the public, I wrote to some thirty 
or more poultry judges, who were supposed to be selected as 
judges to officiate at the coming poultry show to be held in 
Buffalo during the exhibition at that place in 1901, asking 
them if they knew of any way to tell when a pullet 
was about to lay. I thought that if they did not know that 
much of the laying proposition, I would be safe in going ahead 
with publishing my secrets. The letters I received were left 
in Minnesota when I came to California shortly before the 
earthquake in 1906, so I cannot name the judges at present; 
but they will remember me as the proprietor of the Fergus 
Falls Woolen Mills, and I must say they replied in a very cour- 
teous manner, saying there was no way except the general 
appearance of the bird, as to its maturity of form, redness of 
comb and wattles, singing, looking for nest, etc. One only of 
the number charged me one dollar for this information. 

Failing health obliged me to dispose of my manufacturmg 
business and retire to the farm, and it was in the spring of 
1905 before I published my "Walter Hogan System," when it 
appeared in a number of poultry papers. (See Reliable Poul- 
try Journal, March, 1905.) I did not copyright the work at 
that time, although my experience in mechanical inventions 
had taught me that I should have done so, and the following 
August imitations began to appear, until in 1912 a number 
of different parties in the United States and foreign countries 
were claiming authorship, and selling it under the same or dif- 
ferent titles. 

My years of research and expense brought me no financial 
returns, and in the spring of 1906, I left Minnesota for Cali- 



8 THE CALL OF THE HEN. 

• 
fornia, a physical and financial wreck. After having regained 
my health, I began here at Petaluma to build up the same 
kind of a flock of layers that I had done in previous years, 
w^ith the idea of publishing my entire work when I should 
have bred up a strain of 200-egg hens and better. 

After I removed to California, Professor M. E. Jaffa, of 
the University of California, became interested in the matter, 
and at the request of the Petaluma Poultry Association, had 
the discovery tested at the California Poultry Experimental 
Station for two years, and continued for two years longer for 
the purpose of determining the value of four-year-old hens 
as layers, as it is outlined in this book in the chapter relating 
to the selection of the best layers in a flock. 

It was also tested in New Zealand by D. D. Hyde, chief 
poultry expert for the New Zealand government, and Prof. 
Brown, of the New Zealand Poultry Experiment Station. I 
have repeatedly been requested by (my friends in different 
parts of the world to publish the full matter in book form, 
but poor health and lack of sufficient funds have prevented me 
from doing so until now. As this work will be copyrighted, I 
do not anticipate the literary pirates will raid it as they have 
my former w^ork. In justice to the poultry fraternity I 
want to say that while I have been, and am now, a member 
of the American Poultry Association, and have raised poultry 
fifty-six years, and now raise them by the thousand, I have 
never in the past classed myself as a poultryman in the strict 
sense of the word. Hundreds have known me as an inventor, 
and woolen manufacturer, where one would know me as a 
poultry crank and the only apology I have for offering 
this book to the public in a field already crowded with poultry 
literature, is the earnest solicitation of my friends. 

WALTER HOGAN, 
Petaluma, California, July 7, 1912. 



The Call of the Hen or the Science of 
the Selection and Breeding of Poultry 

By WALTER HOGAN 



CHAPTER I. 



I received a letter in the winter of 1910 from a woman in 
Oregon which read as follows. 

Dear Sir: My husband is a machinist. He is getting- 
old and his health is failing. We have both worked hard all 
our lives and have saved enough to buy a small place in the 
country. We can no longer do hard work, and in looking for 
some light occupation that would bring weekly returns, we 
have looked favorably on the poultry business. We have 
kept a small flock of hens on a town lot for a number of 
years and think we have done well with them. We also take 
four poultry papers, but each one tells a different story, and 
we cannot decide what to do. We havd been years accumu- 
lating our little savings, and if we should lose them we would 
hiave no resources left for our old age. I enclose two articles 
from the September, 1910 number of the "Pacific Fanciers 
Monthly.'' One article gives me to understand that it is almost 
hopeless to think of making a living with hens if wfe depend on 
selling eggs and poultry on the market. The other article 
holds out the promise of a possible income of a thousand dol- 
lars per year from 300 hens if handled under right conditions. 
One means utter failure and bankruptcy in market eggs and 
poultry, and the other means the fullest measure of success. 
Both of these articles are in the same number and one follows 
the other on the same page. How can you reconcile these two 
conflicting opinions? 



lO THE CALL OF THE HEN. • 

A Common Question Wisely Answered. 

By Geo. Scott. 

Can a living be made from poultry? Probably there is no one 
who has attained distinction in the avicultural arena to whom 
this question has not been put hundreds of times. And it is a 
question of perennial interest to the poultry keeping public. 
There are many people who will tell you that a living, and a 
good living, can be made from poultry keeping alone and as 
proof of their statement will point out the numerous men 
whose names are household words in the fancy. On the other 
hand a vast majority will most emphatically give uttenance to 
statements calculated to deter any poultry keeping aspirant 
and give weight to their contention by citing hundreds of 
cases where men have tried and failed. Truly the mass of 
evidence appears to be with the latter belief, for it is an indubit- 
able fact that for every person who succeeds in this business 
a hundred fail. But, looking at the mjiatter from a logical 
point of view, the fact that a minority rely on poultry for their 
daily bread is ample evidence that it is quite possible to make 
a living out of poultry keeping, and the abnormal number of 
failures merely proves that the business is a difficult one. 

The fact that a m*an has failed in some other business takes 
up poultry keeping with a like result, in no sense proves that 
poultry keeping does not pay; it is only what could be expect- 
ed, and any experienced aviculturist would have prophesied 
such a result. It is, how'ever, useless to explain such things 
to the man who is contemplating starting a poultry farm. To 
suggest that he is unfit for the task would be taken by him 
as an insult, for the public, in its ignorance, has conceived the 
idea that poultry management is the simplest work that any- 
one dan think of in fact, I question whether an outsider consid- 
ers it to be work at all. 

Such a hold has this belief obtained on the man in the street 
that it almost amounts to a superstition, and until the fallacy 
is exploded the number of the unsuccessful will be constantly 
increased. The public, apparently, cannot understand the 
difference between keeping a few fowls as a paying hobby and 
managing a poultry farm is an enormous one, and that the 



THE CALL OF THE HEN. 1 1 

minor difficulties to be met with in the former case »are increas- 
ed a thousand fold in the latter. 

Probably there is no other business which calls for so many 
qualifications as that of the poultry farmer, and to say that 
the man who has been successful in any other walk in life is to- 
tally unfitted for this business, though somewhat exaggerated, 
will give the tyro some ide'a of what is wanted. An intimate, de- 
tailed knowledge of poultry management, an unlimited reserve 
of perseverance, determination, and resource, a genuine love 
for fowls, the clapacity for hard, continuous work for seven 
days a week, combined with business knowledge and thrifty 
management, are all essential, and will, with ordinary luck, 
lead one to the desired goal. 

I am very dubious as to whether *a living can be made from 
utility poultry keeping pure and simple ; that is to say, by sell- 
nig eggs and birds solely for edible purposes. A profit can un- 
doubtedly be made, but it is so infinitesimal that the income 
derived from this source alone would, I am afraid, sc|arcely 
sufiice for the needs of the most parsimonious. If it is decided 
to specialize in utility points, pure bred stock must be kept of 
the popular varieties, and eggs for hatching, day-old chicks, 
and stock birds must be sold. This will make all the differ- 
ence, and once a connection has been worked up there is no 
reason why the business should not pay, and pay well. 

The breeding of exhibition birds is, without doubt, the most 
profitable branch, and when once a name has been made stock 
and eggs can be disposed of at most remunerhtive prices. Suc- 
cess, however, cannot be attained at once — it is often the work 
of years — and many breeders never rise from the ranks of 
mediocrity. Moreover, much capital is required to start an ex- 
hibition poultry farm, any ones expenses incurred in the man- 
agement are infinitely heavier than is the case where utility 
points are the only consideration. 

I would not advise anyone unversed in poultry culture to 
give up a situation, however poor, in order to go in for poultry 
keeping as a means of earning a livelihood. To' think of such a 
thing is foolish in the extreme, but for anyone to burn one's 
'boats behind one in this way would be suicidal. What I would 
suggest to keeping iaspirants (and I believe the number of 
these reaches well into four figures) is that they should keep 
as many fowls as they can attend to properly in their sspare 
hours, and see what profits they can make from the birds. 



12 THE CALL OF THE HEN. 

Above all, they must find out if they have a genuine love for 
the work, for without this nothing can be done. When a 
name has been made as a breeder of good stock, then and then 
only, is it time for the amateur to consider the advisability of 
adopting poultry keeping as a business; and long before this 
point is reached the glamor of the idea may have faded, for 
the life of a poultry keeper is, contrary to popular belief, far 
from being a bed of roses. Practically all the men who are 
today making a living from poultry commenced keeping fowls 
as a hobby, and the knowledge and experience which they 
gained in this way enabled them to found the establishments 
which are today of world wide reputation. 

To those who are qualified for the work poultry keeping of- 
fers a good living, but to the idle, the thriftless, or the pleasure 
seekers of this holiday-making age, it offers more desolate 
prospects than any other trade or profession. In this business, 
nothing but dogged determination will enable the beginner to 
climb the rugged, precipitous path to success, and anyone who 
is lacking in this essential, or who is afraid of hard, continuous 
work, will save himself the obloquy of failure by choosing 
some other field in which to exercise his powers. 

THE GOOD LITTLE HEN. 

What She Will Do For You If You Will Treat Her Right. 

By Mrs. A. Basley 

There is money in poultry for the man and especially for the 
woman that will dig it out. This I can assure the Fanciers 
Monthly readers if they are in doubt, 

"Did it out,'' seems a curious \\iay of putting it. When I spent 
a summer in a big mining camp in Colorado I noticed a great 
many holes in the sides of the mountains. "Yes," said a miner, 
^'and not five per cent of those holes have f^aid." It was apall- 
ing to think of the thousands of dollars lost in those holes. 
"Give me a hundred hens," said I. The money it took to dig 
one of those unprofitable holes would have started a fine poul- 
try plant, and the good little hens, would have brought in a 
living for their owners. 

There is money in poultry! Every inch of a hen is valuable. 
J would like to give you one of the values in the hen and what 
it costs to keep her. 



THE CALL OF THE HEN. I^ 

First, tiicre are the eggs she will lay if properly fed and 
treated. Twelve do<;eii eggs per year is the average, although 
I personally know poultry plants now being operated in South- 
ern California where the output as shown by carefully kept 
records is sixteen dozen per year. The average price at the 
Arlington tgg ranch for the past year was thirty-one cents a 
dozen, because the proprietor arranged to have his hens' laying 
when eggs cost the most in the fall and winter months. 

Sixteen dozen eggs at thirty-one cents a dozen means each 
hen brings in $4.96 in eggs whilst her food costs ten cents per 
month or $1.00 per year, leaving $3.76 as profit for eggs. 

There is still another source of profit in the hen and that 
is in the droppings. At several of the Experiment Stations it 
has been found that a hen voids about 100 pounds of droppings 
per year. These droppings have been' analysed and show a 
value as fertilizer of from thirty to thirty-five cents per hen; 
the value being controlled not only by the market demand but 
also by the quality; the droppings being richer as fertilizer 
where the food was rich in protein, and where the hens are 
fed the "full and plenty" method. 

"What do you do with the hen droppings?" I asked a be- 
ginner. "Throw them away, glad to get rid of them," was the 
reply. At the rate of ten dollars per ton that was a vs^aste of 
fifty cents, per hen. Two of our neighbors had lawns which 
were in so bad a condition from the soil being worn out that 
they were on the point of having them' dug out and new soil 
put in, and the whole re-sowed, when they thought of their 
hen droppings. These they had spread over the lawns and 
then raked off again and the lawns well watered. In a month's 
time those lawns looked beautiful, better far than if they had 
been re-made and at far less cost. 

When I lived in the Eastern states my window garden 
was the envy and admiration of every one that passed; there 
were flowers galore all through the dark winter gloom and cold 
frosty days. I loved my plants, took good care of them in 
every way, but the secret of the wonderful blossoms was hen 
manure ! 

Once a month I half filled a bucket with hen droppings, 
poured a kettlefull of boiling water on it, filling the bucket 
with the water, stirred it with a stick, let it settle and cool and 
watered the plants with that liquid. I found that hen drop- 
pings enrich the ground for almost all plants better than any- 



14 THE CALL OF THE HEN. • 

thing; roses are the only exception that I have found, they 
doing much better when fertihzed with well-rotted cow ma- 
nure. 

But to return to our hen. She gives thirty pounds weight 
of eggs or sixteen dozen valued at $4.96, she also gives 100 
pounds of value fertilizer worth here $10 a ton, or fifty cents 
per hen, which brings the amount of her earnings to $5.40, and 
at the end of the year we still have the hen<' to eat or sell at 
market value, about 75 cents or $1.00. If wic eat her we have 
the feathers, which are easily saved and can be sold or made 
into pillows, the bones pounded up and fed to; the other fowls. 

Poultry pays and pays better than any other legitimate 
business considering the amount invested. Why then are there 
any failures? I will tell you why. The failures are not the 
fault of the good little hen. She will always do her duty; she 
will always respond to the treatment she gets. The fiailures 
are the people who care for the hen. The. owners are the fail- 
ures and not the fowls. 

Success is what we all want to attain in whatever we un- 
dertake and "lest we forget" some of the things which lead to 
success may I repeat that there are three essentials to egg pro- 
duction. These are — Comfort, Exercise and Proper Food. I 
would like to review these. 



I wrote the lady that both of these articles were right. 
Let us see if we can prove the statement. If the reader has 
ever had any experience with cattle, he knows it would be 
sheer folly to buy a herd of Polled Angus or Herefords for a 
dairy farm for they have been bred for years for beef, and prac- 
tically everything fed to them goes to meat, while it would 
be just as foolish to buy a herd of Jersey cows and expect to 
make a living from them raising beef, as they have been bred 
for years for butter fat and practically everything fed to them 
goes to milk and crean. If the reader's experience has been 
with horses, he is aware that a man engaged in teaming would 
not select the trotting type of horse, neither would a turf- 
ntan put his money on an 1800-pound Clyde' horse if the bal- 
ance of the field were trotting horses. That would not be horse 
sense. Now the same comparison holds good in the poultry 



THE CALT. OF THE HEN. 1 5 

field, except with this difference, that the Qgg type and meat 
type in poultry have never,been segregated into different breeds 
and each breed bred for a number of years along the line it 
was intended for — the egg type bred for eggs alone, and all 
birds inclined to meat production discarded, both male and 
female, and the meat type bred for meat, without regard to 
eggs except enough to perpetuate the species, just as the 
typical butter cattle and typical beef cattle have been bred. 

I have seen a great rn[any cases like the first mentioned 
article, where a person would go into the poultry business, 
and get started with stock that was of the meat type, and 
not knowing any better, would think that all poultry was the 
same as his, and the only way any money could be made in 
the business was to sell fancy birds and eggs at fancy prices. 
Now these people are not to blame for what they do not know. 
They think their hens are as good layers as any other hens, 
and they have no way of knowing any better. 

I have also seen a great many cases like Mrs. Basley 
writes of, except the profits were not so large, owing to dif- 
ferent environment I suppose. These people had the same 
breed of hens as the parties before mentioned, but they were 
fortunate in getting the egg type, and they made money with 
their hens. Each one thinks every other person's hens are 
the same as theirs if they are the same breed, and that is the 
reason there are so many different conflicting statements in 
the poultry papers, and not because the writers are not intel- 
ligent or not truthful as some suppose. From a scientfic 
point of view, and apart from the fancy, and as far as the 
knowledge of meat and egg production is concerned, the poul- 
try business is in its infancy, and the people who write for the 
poultry papers give their experience for your benefit. That's 
all. 

To further impress on your mind the difference between 
poultry and other stock, I would say that while some in- 
dividual cattle of the various beef breeds will not be a paying 
proposition, the only safe plan is to select your feeders from 
the beef family, and as some Jersey cows will not pay as but- 
ter producers, still, as a breed, they are among the best for 
that purpose. As some trotting horses do not make good, as 
a rule they will carry you over the road in good time, and as 
some draft type teams are not sure pullers, they are a success 
as a class. 



l6 •"! THE CALL OP THE HEN. " #"" "^ 

The same general laws apply to all animal nature. The 
hen is no exception, only in this respect, — that while cattle 
and horses have been bred so that as a rule a novice can select 
the type they wish by selecting' the breed, hens have not been 
bred that way. We have what purports to be egg breeds and 
dual purpose breeds. . The first are supposed to be a paying 
proposition as a whole for egg production. The latter are 
supposed to be a paying proposition for both eggs and meat 
combined, some breeders claiming that their breed will give 
you the very largest number of eggs per year, and the greatest 
weight of flesh all in one bird. Now these claims are mis- 
leading. It is an utter physical impossibility for any hen to 
be a tvpical egg type and at the same time be a typical meat 
type. It is ag.iinst the laws of nature. We have the Leg- 
horns, Mmorcas, Spanish, and a number of other Mediter- 
raean breds that are called egg type. While the truth is 
that while they have been bred as best the breeders knew 
how along the lines of egg production, you can find vast 
numbers that will not lay eggs enough to pay for the feed 
they eat. Great numbers in some flocks have all the char- 
acteristics of the beef type and will lay about three or four 
dozen eggs per year and some times not over a dozen. The 
Plymouth Rock, Orpington, Wyandotte and Langshans are 
classed as dual purpose breeds. That means hens that will 
lay a medium number of eggs and give a good large carcass 
for the table, and while this is true in a majority of cases, 
I have seen numerous specimens that laid over two hun- 
dred and fifty eggs per year, while some would lay little 
or nothing. In fact, while I have bred Leghorns for more 
than forty years and they are my favo'rite breed, I must say 
I have found as good layers (within a few eggs) in all the 
other breeds I have named as I have found in the Leg- 
horns and I have also found as poof layers among the Leg- 
horns as I have found in any other breed, and as far as the 
number of eggs are concerned, as a rule I find that the 
breed of the hen has nothing to do with it wh/itever. 

I do not wish to be considered dogmatic in anything 
I may say in this work. I am merely giving the opinions I 
have formed by observation and experiment during a period 
of fifty-six years that I have kept poultry, not to make all the 
money I could out of them but to learn all I possibly could 
about them, in fact, until a few years ago I never kept poultry 



ll 



THE CALL OF THE HEN. ly 

for the money there was in it. The keeping of hens has been a 
passion with me. I have spent years of time and thousands of 
dollars, but I think I have fonnd something- that \\Hill be of in- 
estimable value to the world md I have found it not because I 
was any better fitted for the work than thousands of other 
lovers of poultry but because I stuck everlastingly to it without 
-any regard as to whether it paid me in dollars or not. 

As previously stated, it is not a matter of breed as to 
whether a hen is a good layer or not. It is a matter of type, 
•capacity and constitutional vigor. First, in almost all breeds 
there is a type of hen wdiere everything she consumes over 
bodily maintenance goes to the production of eggs. This 
we call the typical Qgg type. Second, there is a type where 
about half the food consumed over maintenance goes to the 
production of eggs, the balance over bodily maintenance, 
going to m<ake flesh. This is called the dual purpose, type. 
As this hen performs two functions that are considered neces- 
sary in the economy of nature, the production of eggs and the 
production of meat on a commercial scale. Third, there is a 
type where everything consumed over bodily maintenenance 
goes to flesh. This hen we call the meat type for the' reason 
that practically all her energy is used in producing meat. 

Now here we have three distinct types of fowl in almost 
every breed. We have divided these three types into six 
separate classes for each type : 

No. 1 of the typical egg type hen may lay about 36 eggs. 

No. 2 may lay about 96 eggs. 

No. 3 may lay about 180 eggs. 

No. 4 may lay about 220 eggs. 

No. 5 may lay about 250 eggs. 

No. 6 may lay about 280 eggs. 

All this is in their first laying year. 

No. 1 of the dual purpose type hen may Iciy aoout 20 eggs. 

No 2 may lay about 50 eggs. 

No. 3 may lay about 96 eggs. 

No. 4 may lay about 115 eggs. 

No. 5 may lay about 130 eggs. 

No. 6 may lay about 145 eggs. 

The first laying year. 

No I of the typical meat type may lay from nothing to 
a dozen eggs. No 2, 3 4, 5 and 6 may lay from nothing to a 
couple of dozen eggs, and as a rule will lay these in the spring 



1 8 THE CALL OF THE HEN. 

when the crows lay. The reason is very plain if we stop to 
think that the same natural laws govern all animal (and 
human) nature. 

The egg type hen is of a nervous temperament. (That 
is why she is usally free from body lice if she has a suitable 
place to dust in), and all she eats over bodily maintenance 
goes to the production of eggs. The hen of the sangunine 
temperament is a little more beefy and lays less eggs. The 
hen of the bilious temperament is more beefy still and lays 
still less eggs, while the hen of the lymphatic temperament 
will lay little or nthing, almost everything she eats going to 
flesh and fat. (The reader need borrow no trouble over the 
meaning of the terms, nervous, sanguine, billions and lym- 
phatic temperaments if he is not familiar with them, as the 
charts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 will specify matters so that anyone can 
understand the matter of selecting the different graaes of 
hens with very little study and trouble.) 

We have said that we have divided the three gracies, the 
egg type, dual purpose type, and meat type, into six separate 
classes. There is, in fact, a seventh class, but it is so rare that 
we will not take it into consideration- here, but will explain 
it later. But we have, in fact, made 90 classes of these six 
for convenience in selection and the process could be ex- 
tended indefinitely but it would serve no needful purpose. 

Now when we consider all these different grades in the 
hens of every breed, and the further fact that there is the same 
number of different grade in the male bird, is it any wonder 
that there is so much difference of opinion in regard to the 
profits derived from poultry keeping? We have visited hun- 
dreds of poultry plants that numbered from about fifty to 
two thousand or more hens e'ach. We have seen some flocks 
of five hundred that would not pay for the feed they consumed 
for the simple reason that they were not the right type of 
hens. They were fine looking healthy meat producers, but 
there was no earthly way possible to feed them that would 
induce them to lay eggs at any time except a few months 
in the spring when the crows laid and eggs were cheap. The 
owners of some of these flocks were bright, brainy, vigorous 
business men who tried every method that usage and science 
suggested and fought with sheer desperation to make a suc- 
cess of the business, but went down in failure while their next 
neighbor, a little pin-headed, conceited speciman of humanity, 



THE CALL OF THE HEN. Iq 

Strutting around like a peacock, was getting rich with the same 
breed of hens.. Luck, do you say? Yes it is mostly a matter 
of chance. The first man was unfortunate in that he got his 
eggs or breeding pens from stock such as that described in 
the first article of the "Fanciers Monthly," while the last 
man got his eggs or breeding pens from stock described by 
Mrs. Basley in the second article. 

We once visited a gentlman who had a very extensive 
poultry plant. He had a large number of different breeds 
yarded off in finely appointed yards with help and financial 
means to satisfy every need of a poultry plant. His pens of 
Rocks, Orpingtons and Langshans were remarkable layers, 
while his Cochins, Houdans and Polish were very good lay- 
ers. After looking over the last named birds he remarked, 
"I have 500 Leghorn hens which are 18 months old which I 
wish you would look at." After we had looked at them a few 
minutes he said, "What do you think of them as layers?" I 
replied that if he would tell me which pen laid an average of 
all the pens, I would tell him in a few minutes. "That pen 
there," said he, pointing to No. 20, "has laid an average num- 
ber of all the eggs laid." I looked it up only last night. After 
examining the hens I told him I would not take them as a 
gift if I had to keep them one year. "Why." he asked. "Be- 
cause," I relied, "after keeping them a year and selling them, 
the price I would receive for the hens ^nd the eggs they 
would lay, would not pay for their feed. I cannot see why 
you keep them." The next evening he said to me, "Do you see 
that man moving into the place over yonder. Well, I have 
sold those Leghorn hens to that newcomer for $500." "Is 
this an exceptional case" you ask. I have only this to say; 
that all the David Harums are not in the horse business, 
neither can I see why a poultry man should be his brother's 
keeper when it is not the rule in other lines of business. It 
seems to me the better way is to study poultry from a scien- 
tific point of view, so that you can judge the value of a hen 
for the purpose you want her for, and not have to depend on 
other peoples' opinions. 

By studyng this book carefully you will be able to tell 
approximately the number of eggs a hen is capable of laying 
in a year; you can also select the hens that will be the best 
for breeding purposes, for eggs, for meat, or as a dual purpose 
hen, that is, a hen that will give you the largest number of 



20 THE CALL OF THE HEN. .. - .. 

egg-s possible, with the largest possible amount of meat when 
you w:ish to sell her. or the hen that will produce the 
best broilers, regardless of any one particular breed. Some 
hens will be very good layers, some very good meat pro- 
ducers, some very good dual purpose type and ' some very 
fine fancy birds, and you can mate them with the same type 
of male bird and breed from these birds for a few genera- 
tions, and their progeny will degenerate. The chickens from 
the hens and cockerells or cock birds of the 200-egg type may 
lay less each generation until in eight or ten generations they 
may not lay enough to pay for their feed. The progeny 
. from some of the best meat and dual purpose type matings, 
will some times degenerate just as the egg type, until they 
are practically worthless as profitable meat producers. The 
chicks from the fancy mating may be a failure from the fan- 
cier's point of view. This is the rock that some old poul- 
tr}' breeders are sometimes wrecked upon. One case of na- 
jtjonal interest was the case of the late lamented Prof. Gowell 
,oi the State of Maine Experiment Station. He had started 
some years before to breed up a heavy laying strain by using 
the trap nest, selecting eggs for hatching from hens that 
were his best layers, and conformed as near as possible to 
the standard, and using cockerels hatched from these eggs 
lo mate with his hens. Now this w^as all right as far as it went, 
but there was something that the professor had not taken 
into consideration. He had procured the best birds he could 
find, had trap nested them to discover the hens that were 
the most prolihc layers, had selected the eggs from what 
he had considered to be the best hens for the purpose (and 
up the best looking cockerels from these best eggs from the 
few men had better judgment in this respect.) He had mated 
best laying hens, and according to all apparent precedents 
was he not justified in expecting an increase each year in 
egg production? But what were the results? If reports are 
true, there was a decrease in egg production, and what do 
you suppose was the cause ? There must be some cause. There 
is a cause for every effect. Sometimes we think things just 
happen, that there is no natural law that governs them; that 
in this or that case it was all chance; that it may not have 
happened to another person, and will not be likely to happen 
to us again, and so we dismiss the matter only to have the 



THE CALL OF THE HEN. gl 

same thing repeat itself, until we either solve the problem 
or meet our doom through it, and thereby hangs a tale. 

Some time in the summer of 1905 I received a letter 
from a doctor in one of the suburbs of Boston, asking me 
what I would charge to visit Orono, Maine, and have a talk 
with Prof. Gowell, and incidentally to drop a few remarks 
that might be of some help to him in his investigations. I 
had never met the professor, but I replied to the Doctor that 
I would go. (I was then living in Minnesota.) And would 
pay my own expenses as I wished to visit Boston, my birth- 
place and where I first started in poultry keeping in 1857, 
and it would be a small matter to go from there to Orona, 
Maine, where Prof. Cowell was conducting his experiments. 
While I was waiting for a reply, I decided that as Prof 
Gowell had put so much time and thought into the trap 
nest proposition and had built so much on that one thing, 
and that as he could get results from it (only it was a waste of 
time), that in this first visit to him I would offer only one 
suggestion, and that was the secret of selecting the birds, 
both male and female, that would be sure to breed progeny 
that would be better than their parents along the lines in 
which the parents excelled, or in other words, tansmit their 
predominating characteristics to their offspring, that is, if the 
cockerel or cock bird and hens were typical meat type birds, 
the progeny would excel along these lines. Some of them 
would excel their parents in the production of meat; they 
would be hardier, better feeders, would digest and assimilate 
their food better, and consequently arrive at maturity sooner, 
and be of better flavor and more tender, and by breeding 
these birds along the lines laid down by I. K. Felch, of Natick, 
Mass., (Hne breeding he calls it), they would improve each 
season so that in a number of years, there would be a great 
difference in their favor over their parents. If the pen was a 
fancy proposition and had been bred some years for fancy 
points, the progeny would show a decided improvement in a 
few years over their parents. If the pen were the typical 
egg type, the progeny would show an increase over their 
parents in stamina and egg production. I would also have 
shown him where the birds he was breeding from were de- 
ficient in the faculty that governs fecundity, or in other words, 
which controls the function of reproduction. 



22 THE CALL OF THE HEN. . 

Whittier in "Maud Muller" says, — For of all sad words 
of tongue or pen, the saddest are these, — it might have been. 
lYes; it might have been. Prof. Gowell might have lived to 
give many more years of aid to the poultry world and his 
tragic death been prevented, but he wrote the doctor that he 
did not want me to come. He seemed determined to solve 
the problem hmiself and no doubt would have done so if he 
had been as care free from routine duties as a man in his posi- 
tion should have been, and I charge his untimely end to 
society. The men and women in our public institutions who 
are giving their lives, for the benefit of humanity are not ap- 
preciated at their true value. We demand the full limit of 
routine outies, forgetting that it is impossible for a tired 
body to lurnish sufficient nutriment to the brain to solve these 
intricate pioblems that are continually confronting them, and 
while we cause them to sufter mentally and physically individ- 
ually, we cause ourselves to suffer collectively by our parsim- 
.onious treatment of them. 

;, CHAPTER H. 

The writer is not one of the long winded kind. I don't 
like to talk a long time in order to say a few words, or write 
■a dozen pages, where one will do as well. I believe in hand- 
ing out the chunks of gold with as little dross as possible. 
I think the reader would rather receive the information I 
have to offer, in one page, than in a dozen; that he would 
rather discover the facts in a few feet than to be obliged to 
hunt over a hundred acres of literary space for the same in- 
formation. For that reason I will make this work as brief as pos- 
sible. I will be aided in my effort to do so by the fact that 
the theories offered in the work have been more or less dem- 
onstrated by the "Govermental Experimental Stations of New 
Zealand, and the States of Minnesota and California; also in 
the Poultry Plants of the five state hospitals (which contains 
thousands of hen) in the State of California. Under the 
auspices of the State Board of Health, and the Physicians 
of the different hospitals, it might not be a difficult matter 
to mislead a few poultrymen on a subject that deals wholly 
with Physiology and Anatomy, but it would be absurd to 
think for a moment that one could deceive all of the phy- 
sicians in five state insane hospitals. It seems a man who 



THE CALL OF THE HEN. 23 

would still doubt, would believe the world was flat, especially 
when he learns that a member of the State Board of Health, 
told the writer that there was a difference of fifteen hundred 
dollars in favor of using the system, in one year, in one of 
the hospitals alone. 

\A-e commence in this chapter the unfolding of a method 
■or test by which the reader can tell approximately the 
value of a hen and a male bird as a breeding proposition 
^and in the chapter on breeding alone, this book will be worth 
it's weight in gold, to the fanciers) an egg producer, or a meat 
producer. It is my desire to make the facts contained in 
this book, so clear, and the tests so easy of application, that 
any one can become proficient in the use of them in a short 
time. Therefore, I have prepared a series of illustrations, 
showing numerous types and conditions of fowls, also var- 
ious other facts that may better be shown by pictures, than 
by explanations alone. 

You will remember, no doubt that you did not arrive at 
3'our present proficiency in reading in a day or two; that it 
took some little time, and there was a certain system or 
evolution in your study. , You will find the same true of this 
method. There is a certain process that leads from one step 
to another, until you have covered the system, when by re- 
peated study and practice you will become proficient and 
accomplish what at first seems impossible. It may seem an 
impossible task to handle and grade sixteen, hundred hens in 
six hours, but the writer has done it. With suf^cient help 
to hand me the hens, we graded or in other words tested 
out sixteen hundred hens in six hours in the State Hospital 
Poultry yards at Ukiah, Mendocino county, California, March 
1910. Not so bad for a semi-invalid of 62, we hear you say. 
Our reply is, it's prjactice. You can do the same. Go through 
the movements with every hen you pick up each day, and in 
a short time, what at first is difficult will appear quite easy. 

For some years previous to 1912 there was great ac- 
tivity in the poultry industry, there having been no lack of 
poultry papers,, farm papers and magazines, that for a nom- 
inal sum would give tuition in poultry culture. The ease of 
getting a theoretical knowledge of the business, induced 
thousands to take it up who otherwise would not think of 
doing so. The apparent ease of conducting the business, the 
small amount of capital it was supposed to require with the 



24 THE CALL OF THE HEN. * 

large and steady income it offered were the will-o-th'-wisps. 
that lured the many to financial loss. I would warn my 
readers against rushing into the poultry business on a scale 
beyond their means without first obtaining a working knowl- 
edge of the same. With good stock, with the proper en- 
vironment, a good market and a working knowledge of the 
business, there is little danger of failure if one is willing to 
do the work necessary on a poultry plant. It offers the most 
independent living for the smallest amount of capital of any 
busines I know of. 

The requisites for success are the knowledge to know 
how to be able to select the hen you need for any particular 
purpose, whether it is for eggs or for meat or fancy. Whether 
the hen will be a paying proposition or not (this may depend 
on your market) whether she will be able to transmit her 
predominating characteristics to her offspring or not. Also 
you must be able to judge accurately the value of the male 
bird as to what you want him for, and. as to his ability to 
stamp his offspring with the desired qualities. All the above 
you can learn from this book. You should also know how 
to operate incubators, how to feed and care for little chicks, 
how your hen houses should be built to suit your climate, how 
your growing pullets should be fed and housed, and the best 
way to feed to get the most eggs at the smallest cost, and 
how to feed and mate to get fertile eggs and vigorous chicks. 
There are numerous books published on all of these latter 
subjects that you can buy from the publishers of any poultry 
paper. So we do not take up the matter in this work, we 
give only what you cannot get anywhere else. 

Following is a series of half-tones and explanations re- 
presenting the method we have used in instructing hundreds 
of poultrymen and women in California and other states, 
and the managers of poultry plants in a number of State 
institutions in the State of California. 



CHAPTER III. 

There are three characteristics that it is absolutely nec- 
essary for a hen to possess, for the economical production of 
eggs or meat. The first is capacity, the second is condition^ 



I 



THE CALL OF THE HEN. 



25 



the third is type. The reader must bear these in mind in 
studying the next few chapters, as we will dispose of these 
before taking other matters into consideration. First, what is 
capacity? Capacity means the abdominal capacity to consume 
and assimilate the amount of food necessary to produce the 
number of eggs or the amount of meat necessary to make the 
individual hen under consideration a paying proposition. 
Second, Condition. If the hen under consideration is an egg 
type, she must be kept in proper bodily conditir-n by supplying 
her with the right quantity and quality of food that will fur- 
nish her with vitality to produce the number of eggs required 
of her. Third, Type., She must be of a type that everything 
she consumes is used in producing the desired effect, whether 
it is meat, whether it is eggs, or whether it is the maximum 
amount of eggs and meat that a dual purpose hen can produce. 
With the reader bearing the above three propositions in mind, 
namely. Capacity, Condition and Type, we will proceed to 
show how to judge the hen with the least amount of time and 
labor. 




Figure I. — Showing Hens in House. 
Figure 1 shows the interior of an open front colony house, 
largely used around Petaluma. The roosts are connected to 



25 THE CALL OF THE HEN. • 

the house by hinges so they can be hooked up out of the way 
while cleaning the house or examining the hens as in the 
present case. These houses are usually about 8 feet wide and 
10 feet deep inside, with 4 feet posts and pitch roof. These 
houses are open front with the exception of 18 inches on each 
side, as can be seen on one side, wihere hens are going out of 
house into catching coop. When hens move too slow to suit, 
one or more persons (children will do) can take grain sack by 
bottom side in one hand and top side in the other hand and go 
into house holding sacks spread apart and moving gently close 
to floor or ground and drive the hens into the catching coop. 
When coop is full shut down slide door on outside to prevent 
hens returning to house. 

Some readers may have long houses, holding five hundred 
hens or more. In this' case you will need a panel run diagonal- 
ly across the house, to a point near the opening, where the 
hens go in and out of the house, as in Fig. 1 1-2. This panel 




Figure IV2.— Showing Two Incli Wire Panel Placed Diagonally Across 

House Holding 2,000 Hens, 
can be as long as required for the width of the house and made 
in sections if desired and should be six feet or more high. 

Figure 2. Shows hens in the coop, when there is enough 
in we shut down the slide door and proceed as in Fig. 3. 



THE CALL OF THE HEN. 



27 




Figure 2. — Showing Hens in Catching Crate. 




Figure 3.— Showing How Hens Are Taken Out of Catching Crate. 

Fig. 3. Note the slide door on top of the crate, we open 
this just enough to admit our arm while we grasp the hen firm- 
ly by both legs, so she can't twist around and injure herself. 
A slide door is better than a hinged door as you can open the 
former just enough to take out the hen without so much dan- 
ger of any of the other hens escaping. 



28 



THE CALL OF THE HEX. 





, ! 

h 

: 

i 

• i 
1 



Figure 4.— Showing Right and Wrong Way to Hold Arms. 




Figure 5.— Bltovi'Mg'How a Heu- may be Held while Testing Capacity. 



\&-Jh-^ <•: 



ci." :.i -as. 



THE CALL OF THE HEN. 



29 



Fig. 4. Note, how the right arm is held in Fig. 4, this is 
not the right way but it is the \\^)ay most persons hold the left 
arm when they recive their first lesson. Now note how the 
left arm is held, this is the right position and it is difficult for 
me to teach students to hold their arms this way. I have to 
drill them repeatedly before they will do so. 

Fig. 5. Shows how the writer holds a bird to ascertain 
lier cacapity by holding them this way. After long practice he 
is enabled to inspect one in a few seconds by having three 
parties to hand him the birds and to take them from him. A 
small light hen or pullet is best to practice with. 




Figure 6. — Showing Where the Hen's Head Should Be So She Cannot 

See Anything. 



Fig. 6. Shows where the head of the bird should be. You 
"will note that her eyes are covered up so she can't see and that 
lias a tendency to keep her quiet while you examine her. 



30 



THE CALL OF THE HEN. 



Fig. 7, Gives an example of testing the capacity of a 
hen. The hand is placed on the abdomen bet\Meen the two 
pelvic bones and the rear of the breast bone, the left hand 
holding the legs is turned under enough to bring the thighs- 
away from the point of the breast bone so that the thighs will 
not interfere with measuring the depth of the abdomen. The 
depth of the abdomen will v'ary with dilYerent hens. Some will 
be one finger (a linger means the width of a finger the widest 
way. I have called it three-fourth of an inch) between the 
two pelvic bones, (sometimes called lay bones or vent bones) 
and the rear of the breast bone. Some hens will be two fingers 




Figure 7. — Showing How to Test Capacity. 

between the two pelvic bones and the rear of the br(^ast bone^ 
Some will be three fingers. Some hens will be four fingers. 
Some will be five fingers, some will be six fingers, and occas- 
ionally one will be seven fingers between the two pelvic bones 
and the rear of the breast bone. The depth of the abdomeri 
indicates the capacity or the ability of the bird to consume and 
assimilate food and it applies to all breeds, except that every- 
thing else being equal the longer bodied hen having more 



THE CALL OF THE HEN. 



31 



room for the digestive machinery, would have some advantage 
over the shorter bodied hen. 

Fig. 8. This indicates how to hold a hen when you 
examine her for condition. This is one of the most difficult 
and serious problems a poultryman has to deal with. To illus- 
trate, I will cite one case out of hundreds that ]|as come under 
my observation. A gentleman wrote me to call on him as he 
was having trouble with his hens. When I arrived at his place 
he told me when he fed his hens well, he got lots of eggs, but 
some of his hens died. Then when he did not feed them so 
well they did not lay so many eggs, but none of them died. He 
said he had repeated this a number of times with the ^ame 
results. He said the ones that died were as fat as butter. I 




Figure 8. — Showing How to Test Condition. 



picked up one of the hens. She was in prime condition for the 
market. 1 picked up another one, she was very thin. I ex- 
amined all his hens. I found he had. like a great m/my poultry- 
men, three distinct types of hens, the egg type, the dual pur- 
pose type, and the meat type. As he had fancy; birds in all the 
different types he did not want to dispose of any of his flock, so 



32 



THE CALL OF THE HEN. 



I segregated them into three divisions, the egg type, the dual 
purpose type, and the meat type. After that he fed the egg 
*ype all the grain they could clean up in the scratching shod, 
and kept a balance ration of dry ground feed before them all 
ihe time. The dual purpose hens were fed all the grain they 
could clean up in the scratching sheds with a small amount 
ot dry ground feed each day. The meat type hens were fed 
a smaller amount of grain in the scratching shed, with a 
couple of feeds each week of dry ground mash, just enough to 
keep them in condition. After this he had no more trouble 
with his hens not laying in the proper season, and dying from 
from being too fat. He would occasionally pick up a hen in 
the different pens and note their condition and feed them ac- 
cordingly. He told me later that before he ad taken the les- 
sons he Had been working completely in the dark, but now he 
understood the matter thoroughly and knew what to do. 




Figure 9. — Showing One Movement That Has Proved an Aid in Testing Type 

Fig. 9. After examining tiie hen as in Fig. 8, place the 
hand as in Fig. 9, and hold right hand firmly enough ro pre- 
vent her from slippmg down. 



II 



THE CALL OF THE HEN. 



33 



i 







Figure 10. — Showing Another Movement that has Proved an Aid in 

Testing Type. 

Fii^. '0. L.h.^'n, move the left hand down as in Fig. 10, ■uu! 
hold left iiand ihir, enough to keep her in place while removing 
ripht hand. 



TYPE 

Fig. 11. Now brush feathers awfey from vent with back 
of hand and grasp end of pelvic bone so that it comes flush 
with outside of fingers as in Fig 11. This indicates the Type 
of the bird. Some will l)e one-sixteenth (1-16) of an inch thick 
including the flank as held between the thumb and fore— finger 
as seen in Fig. 11 and will vary all the way up to one jand a 
quarter ( 1 1-4) inches, including bone, gristle, fat and flank as 
seen in Fig o-x. 

The reader is aware by this time that we are in the chapter 
pertaining to Type, the last of the three classes that is neces- 
sary to divide poultry into in order to make a scientific class- 
ification to enable one to arrive at the approximate value of 
the "Individual Bird" as an Egg or as a Meat pi-oposition, 
(and without any regard as to its value as a breeder which 



34 



THE CALL OF THE HEN. 



will be shown later). I wish to repeat here that Type is con- 
trolled wholly by temperament. We must select the tempera- 
ment or combinations of temperaments that suit our purpose 
and then with the desired capacity and by scientific feeding so 
as to keep the subject in proper condition, poultry culture will 




Figure 11.— Shows Method of Testing Type, 
become more of a science with the majority of poultrymen 
than it is at present. In order to prepare the reader for what 
is to follow, I will divide poultry into three distinct classes, as 
to temperaments. 

First — the hen that will produce the largest amount of 
eggs with the smallest amount of meat possible for her capac- 
ity is of the nervous temperament. The hen which uses one 
half of her vitality in producing eggs, and the other half of her 
vitality in producing meat, in other words, the dual purpose 
hen, is a combination of both the sanguine and bilious temper- 
aments and is called the hen with the sanguine-bilious-temper- 
ament. 

The hen who produces the largest amount of flesh and 
the smallest amount of eggs, consistent with her capacity is 
of the lymphatic temperament. In a fowl all the different tem- 
peraments and their different degrees of combinations are indi- 



THE CALL OP THE HEN. 



M 



cated by the Pelvic Bones. In the horse they are indicated 
largely by the breed. The x^rabian, the ideal running and trot- 
ting horse is a good type of the nervous temperament. The 
coach horse, of the sanguine-bilious temperament, and the 
Clyde is a good type of the lymphatic temperament. 

]n cattle we have a good example of the nervous tempera- 
ment in the Jersey, and of the lymphatic in the beef family oi 
Durham, also Hereford and Polled Angus; while the Holstein 
and Ayrshire cattle are good types of the sanguine-bilious 
combined. I have made this deviation so I could offer to my 
poultry friends this thought, that there are certain laws in 
nature that have no regard for our theories and the better we 
understand these laws, the less liable we are to make mis- 
takes. • ! 



CHAPTER IV. 
CAPACITY. 



In the preceding chapters, we have given the reader an 
idea of the method we use in judging the value of a hen for 
the purpose we wish her for. In the succeeding chapters, we 
will explain the method in detail. First we will take up capac* 
ity. 




Figure 12. — One Finger Abdomen. 



36 



THE CALL OF THE HEN. 



Fig. 12. Shows a hen with only one finger capacity, (3^ 
of an inch) between the two Pelvic Bones and the rear of the 
Breast Bone. 




Figure 13. — Two Fingers Abdomen. 



;^ig. 13, Shows , a hei^, t\\:o .fi.ifge.r^ capacity, ..( 1 1-2 inches) 
between, the Two Pelvic .Bones.-.an.^rjsar of^ the ^^reast Bone. 




Figui'e 14. — Three Mngefs Abdomen. 



Fig. 14. Shows a hen with three fingers capacity (2 1-4 
inches) between the two Pelvic Bones and the rear of the 
Breast Bone. 



THE CALL OF THE HEN. 

/r:H.H 'aH'v ■: 1,1/ -'f 



37 




■ " FiguTe 15. — Four Fingers Abdomen. ' "' 

Fig. 15. Shows a Ireii fddr fitr'gers (Capacity (3 inches) be- 
tween the two Pelvic' Boiies" and rear of Breast Bone. 




Figure 16. — J^iVe^ JEingfers Abdomen. 



Fig. 16. Shows a henHv'l't*il'"l^^^^e fihgers capacity (3 3-4 
inches) between the.two. Pelyic B.on-es .and ,the rear of the 
Sreast Bone. 



-!0i>;.( '-■ 



38 



THE CALL OF THE HEN. 















' 


. 






*^"'? 




c .7<rr.v 


•ZLih_ 


^4, • . 




^^^^^|p' '^B 
















f 




^^■l 












fc'* 


k 










^. 


^..i^di 




^^^HSh^ 








1 




^^^^^^^^ 


■ 


B 



Figure 17. — Six Fingers Abdomen. 
-■•■ 
Fig. 17, Shows a hen with six fingers capacity (4 1-2 

inches) between the two J'elvic Bones and the rear of the 

Breast Bone. 




Figure 18. — Showing Hen in Very Poor Condition. 

CHAPTER V. 



CONDITION. 

We Next Come To Condition. 
Fig. 18. Shows hen in very poor condition. 



THE CALL OF THE HEN. 



39 




Figure 19. — Showing Hen in Grood Condition. 

Fig. 19. Shows a hen in perfect condition as indicated by 
her full breast. 




Figure 20. — Showing Hen One Finger Out of Condition. 



Fig. 20. Is somewhat thinner as indicated by breast bone. 
W€ call her one finger out oi condition. 



40 



T^, CAJ^h OF THJ];, IfjS^V 




Figure 21. — Showing Hen Two Fingers Out of Condition. 

Fig. 21, is Still thinner, as reader can se by breast bone. 
We call her two fingers out of ■c'onditioh. 




Figure 22.— Showing rfe-^ 'Thr^e Finjgi^rs OT}t of Conation. 

Fig. 22, is still thinner, this we call three fingers out of 
condition and is about as thin as a hen usually gets if there is 
any chance, for her ever being of any use. 

Fig. 23, shows about how the first joint of an index finger 
must be divided up to determine the three degrees of condi- 



tion. 



a.^^3r;.'ao^ :c ^q^.^f^f"'- ' 



THE CALL OF THE HEN, 



41 




Figure 23. — Showing Where the Imaginary Llu;^ Should be Drawn' on the 

First Joint 6f Forefinger 



CHAPTER VI. 



TYPE. 

We now come to "Type." This in indicated by -the thick- 
ness of the "Pelvic Bones" together with the flesh, fai, gristle 
and cartilasre on same. 




Figure 24. — 1-16 Inch Pelvic Bone. 
. Fig. 24, shows a hen whose Pelvic Bones are (one-sixteen- 
th of an inch thick) tliat is about as thick as a piece of card- 



42 



THE CALL OF THE HEN. 



board that paper boxes are made of and the reader must bear 
in mind that the measurements of the Pelvic Bones does not 
mean the bone alone with the skin, flesh, gristle and fat scrap- 
ed off, as some may suppose, but with all the above included. 




Figure 25. — 1-8 Inch Pelvic Bone. 

Fig. 25. Shows a hen with Pelvic Bones one-eighth (1-8), 
of an inch thick. ^j 



d 




1 


mMt- 


^ 


^ 


■ ( 


fi 




3 


wtSm 






1 



Figure 26. — 1-4 Inch Pelvic Bone. 



Fig. 26. Shows i hen with Pelvic Bones one quarter 
(1-4) of an inch thick. 



THE CALL OF THE HEN. 



43 



Fig. 27 . Shows a hen with Pelvic Bones three-eights 
(3-8) of an inch thick. 




Figure 27. — 3-8 Inch Pelvic Bone. 




Figure 28. — ^^ Inch Pelvic Bone. 



Fig. 28. Shows a hen with Pelvic Bones one-half (1-2) 
of an inch thick. 



44 



THE CALL OF THE HEN. 




Figure 29. — % Inch Pelvic Bone. 



Fig. 29. Shows a hen with Pelvic Bones three-quarters 
(3-4) of an inch thick. 




Figure 30. — 1 Inch Pelvic Bone. 



Fig. 30. Shows a hen with Pelvic Bones one (1) inch 
thick. 



THE CALL OF THE HEN. 



45 




Figure 31. — 1^/4 Inch Pelvic Bone. 




FJeure 32. — Crooked Pelvic Bone. "A. A." Position One. 



46 



THE CALL OF THE HEN. 



Fig. 31. Shows a hen with Pelvic Bones one and one-quar- 
ter (1 1-4) inches tliick. 

Now, please bear in mind that everything shown and 
related here refers to Leghorns, and applies to other breeds 
as well, only m a lesser degree, so small, that it amounts to 
almost nothing as I will show later. 

A. A. Fig. 32. Shows the Pelvic Bones with flesh cleaned 
off. 




Figure 33. — Crooked Pelvic Bone. "B. B." Position Two. 
B. B. Fig. 33. Shows the Pelvic Bones with flesh strip- 
ped off farther and painted black so they will show up 
better, you will notice that the Pelvic Bones in Fig. 32 and 
Fig. 33 are crooked. The majority of poultry have more or 
less crooked Pelvic Bones. Sometimes the bones come close 
together which is an obstruction in laying and should be bred 
away from as much as possible. 

Fig. 34 shows perfect Pelvic Bones. In this form they 
are very easy to take between the thumb and finger, also when 
the hen w^nts to lay, the vent has a chance to fall down be- 



THE CALL OF THE HEN. 



47 



tween the Pelvic Bones, which allows the egg to be delivered 
without straining on the part of the hen. Not every poultry- 
man, but every poultry-woman has seen cases where a hen 
has gone on the nest and after a couple of hours commence to 
cackle her head off. Presently we hear the whole flock take 
up the chorus and going to see wh'at the trouble is we find the 




Figure 34. — Most Perfect Pelvic Bones "C. C." 
hens holding an "Old Maids' Convention", and declaring they 
will never lay another egg, it hurts them so much to do so. 
On examining them we find the Pelvic Bones so crooked they 
come together like the horns on a Jersey cow, and when the 
hens lay, instead of the vent dropping down between the pelvic 
bones allowing the egg to be released in an easy manner in 
a few minutes after the hen goes on the nest, the egg is forced 
to be delivered between the Pelvic Bones and Tail Bone, thus 
prolonging the agony of the hen sometimes for hours, when 
if she was built right as in Fig. 34 she would be relieved of the 
^gg without pain in a few minutes. And instead of wasting 
vitality in getting relieved of the egg she would be rustling 
around for material to build another one land thus add at least 
.20 per cent to her egg producing value. This matter of crook- 



48 THE CALL OF THE HEN. • 

ed Pelvic Bones is more frequent in some breeds than in 
others and is a serious matter that is very easily remedied by^ 
breeding- only from birds with the straightest Pelvic Bones, 
especially looking after the Male Birds as one mtile bird with 
crooked Pelvic Bones will transmit this defect to all of his 
'daughters. 

When I came to Petaluma I found whole flocks of thous- 
ands of hens with crooked bones, now they are very rare. The 
poultry breeders soon caught on to my §traight and Thin Pel- 
vic Bone idea, and I think the Societ^'vfor the Prevention of 
Cruelty- to Animals should recognize vittiy serviipeiin relieving 
milfions of hens of the agony of parturition. >^, 



CHAPTER VII. 
THE FIRST LAYING YEAR. 

What is meant by the first laying year? All old poul- 
trymen know what the above means and I have no doubt 
some of my readers may be impatient with me for explaining 
little things that are so familiar to them. But they will re- 
member that poultry parlance is not all contained in the dic- 
tionary, and a groTat deal of the contents of this book may be 
Greek to the beginners in the poultry business who will read 
this work. For this reason I cannot be too plain in my lan- 
guage, or too careful of details in explaining matters. The 
first laying year has nothing whatever to do with the age of a 
hen or a pullet. I have had hens that had passed 'their first 
laying year when they were 16 months old. On the other 
hand 1 have seen hens that were over four years old that hjkd 
not commenced on their first laying year. The hen that had 
passed her first laying year when she was 16 months old had. 
commenced to lay when she \\^as four months old, while the 
hens thdt were over four years old had never laid an egg. So 
the reader will see the fii\>r laymg year commences wini the 
first egg a piiliet lays, and ends one year from' that date, when 
her second laymg year comm(:nces.' 'Some pullets will com- 
mence to lay at four months old, w^lrile others of exact:-/ the 
same type, fed and cared lor in the same mahner'will not-lay 
before they are eight months old, owing to different environ- 
ments. Everything else oe ng equal, poultry will develop 



THE CALL OF THE HEN. 



49 



faster on a warm dry sand}- soil tl^an they will (on :i black 
damp heavy soil. And they will mature much sbbner in a 
good corn country where it is warm in the shade ahd w.arjn 
at night than they will in a poor corn country where It is cool 
lat night and cool in the day time in the shade. I have raised 
Leghorn pullets that were fully developed in size and form 
and laid a full sized egg when they were four months old. 

It can be done in Massachusetts, New York, New Hamp- 
shire and Minnesota, and in parts of California where the 
nights are so warm that one can sleep comfortable under a 
sheet only. But not where you have to cuddle under a lot of 
blankets on a summer night to keep warm. 



CHAPTER VIII. 
THE SELECTION OF TYPES. 

If the reader has practiced handling a hen as i^ Figures 5- 
6-7-8-9-10 and 11, we will proceed wi'th a lesson 'in judging 
hens as to the number of eggs, they wiir lay their first laying^ 
year. " ' ; 

We will look for a small hen to , cbhimence ' with, as 
she will be easier to handle. Having our hen, we will hold 
her as nearly as we can as in 'Fig. 5, and try to have her head as 
in Fig. 6 so she can see nothing. She will then be easier to 

CHART 1. 
One Finger Abdomen 

1-16 pelvic bone 36 eggs 

1-8 pelvic bone 32 eggs 

3-16 pelvic bone 28 eggs 

1-4 pelvic bone 24 eggs 

5-16 pelvic bone 20 eggs 

3-8 pelvic bone 16 eggs 

7-16 pelvic bone 12 eggs 

■ ' 1-2 pelvic bone 8 eggs 

9-16 pelvic bone 4 eggs 

5-8 pelvic bone eggs 



handle. Place hand across her abdomen as in Fig. 7. She nl^ay 
be a one finger abdomen hen as in Fig. 12. Then hold her as 



^O THE CALL OF THE HEN. 

in Fig. 8. Her breast may be as in Fig. 19, if so she will be in 
good condition. Next go through movements as in Fig. 9 and 
10 and hold her and examine her Pelvic Bone as in Fig. 11. 
Her Pelvic Bone may be one sixteenth (1-16) of an inch thick 
as in Fig. 24. Now look on Chart No. 1. Your hen is one 
finger abdomen in good condition and Pelvic Bone is one six- 
teenth (1-16) of an inch thick. You will see that she is a thir- 
ty-six egg type hen. That means that if this hen is one of a 
large number on a commerci'al poultry plant she is capable of 
laying three dozen eggs her first laying year if she is fed and 
cared for properly, barring accidents and disease. So we call 
her a 36 egg type hen. 

We will drop this hen and take (another from the crate 
and go through the same movements, hold her as in Fig 5 or 
'/', with head as in Fig. 6 (she may also be a one finger abdo- 
men hen as in Fig. 12) then examine for Condition as in Fig. 
8. Her condition may be good as in Fig, 19, then hold as 
in Fig. 9 and 10, and measure thickness of Pelvic Bone as in 
Fig. 11. Her Pelvic Bone may be three eights (3-8) of an inch 
thick as in Fig. 27. In that rase she would read like this: One 
finger abdomen, good condition, three-eights (3-8) Pelvic 
Bone. Now look on Chart No. 1 and you will find she is a 
16 egg type hen. We will drop her and take another from the 
crate and go through the same movements as before. This hen 
may be a one finger hen also, in good condition w'ith Pelvic 
Bones 1-2 inch thick, as in Fig. 28, and by consulting the 
chart No. 1, we find she is an 8 egg type hen. 

We drop her and take 'another from the crate. She may 
be a hen with one finger abdomen as in Fig. 12. When we ex- 
arine her for condition, we find she is like Fig. 20. which 
indicates that she is one finger out of condition, (the subject 
of condition is explained in chapter 5). her pelvic bone may be 
l-16th of an inch thick as in Fig. 24. This hen will read differ- 
ent from the other hen that \A^as l-16th Pelvic Bone. This 
hen is out of condition. She may have been in condition up to 
a few weeks previous to our examination of her, the cause of 
her lack of condition may be improper feed or care or both, 
or it may be due to moulting or she may have been broody. In 
any of these cases, it would not be the hen's fault that she was 
out of condition and she should not be held responsible for it. 
Her condition indicates that there is something wrong and 
it's up to her owner to right the wrong, and when we do 



THE CALL OF THE HEN. -j 

right the wrong, the hen will come back into condition and 
her abdomen will then measure two fingers instead of one fin- 
ger. We must therefore read her as a two fiingered abdomen 
hen, l-16th Pelvic Bone, when by looking on our Chart No. 2, 
we find her capacity would be 96 eggs her first laying year if 
we kept her in condition. 

We will drop her and take another hen out of the crate. 
Th'is hen may be a one fingered abdomen hen as in Fig. 12. 
When we examine her for condition we find her as in Fig. 21. 
This indicates that she is two fingers out of condition; her 
Pelvic Bone may be l-16th of an inch. Under her present 
condition, she would lay 36 eggs her first laying year, whereas, 
if she was kept in good condition she would lay 180 eggs. 

We will drop this hen and take another one. She may be 
two fingers abdomen and her breast bone may be as in Fig. 
19. Her Pelvic Bone may be l-16th of an inch. We would 

CHART 2. 

Two Fingers Abdomen. 

1-16 pelvic bone 96 eggs 

1-8 pelvic bone 87 eggs i 

3-16 pelvic bone 78 eggs 

1-4 pelvic bone 69 eggs 

5-16 pelvic bone 60 eggs 

3-8 pelvic bone 51 eggs 

7-16 pelvic bone 42 eggs - ! 

1-2 pelvic bone 33 eggs 

9-16 pelvic bone 24 eggs ! 

5-8 pelvic bone 15 eggs 

11-16 pelvic bone 6 eggs 

3-4 pelvic bone eggs 

read her as a two fingered hen in good condition, Pelvic Bones 
l-16th of an inch thick. We will look on Chart two at Pelvic 
Bones 1-16 and find she is a 96 egg type hen. 

We will drop her and take another from the crate. She 
may be two fingers abdomen and two fingers out of condition 
as in Fig. 21, with Pelvic Bones l-4th of an inch thick. She 
would read two fingers abdomen and two fingers out of condi- 
tion. She would be four fingers abdomen if in condition and 
1-4 Pelvic Bones. Being a four fingered hen (if m 



52 



THE CALL OF THE HEN. 



condition), we will look on Xo. 4 Chart, at 1-4 Pelvic Bones 
and find she is a 175 egg type hen. Wt will drop her. 

Take another. She may be a two fingered abdomen hen as 
in Fig. 13, in good condition as in P'ig. 19, with Pelvic Bones 
3-4 of an inch thick, as n Fig. 29. She would read two finger 
.abdomen, good condition, 3-4 of an inch Pelvic Bones. We 
will look on Chart No. 2 to 3-4 Pelvic Bones and find this hen 
will lay nothing. This does not mean that she is an obsolutely 
barren hen, that she will never lay an egg, (I will expl'ain tfiis 
when we get to the six finger abdomen hen). She may lay a 
few, perhaps half a dozen, in the spring, when the crows lay 
but as a commercial proposition, she will have no more value 
than the hen that never laid an egg. Everything she con- 
sumes, goes to the making of flesh except what she uses in 
bodily maintenance. We will drop her and take another. She 
may be a three finger abdomen hen as in Fig. 14. Her condi- 
tion may be as in Fig. 19, with Pelvic Bones as in Fig. 24. She 



CHART 3. 
Three Fingers Abdomen. 



1-16 

1-8 

3-16 

1-4 

5-16 

3-8 

7-16 

1-2 

9-16 

5-8 

11-16 

3-4 

13-16 

7-8 



pelv 
pelv 
pelv 
pelv 
pelv 
pelv 
pelv 
pelv 
pelv 
pelv 
pelv 
pelv 
pelv 
pelv 



bone 180 

bone 166 

bone 152 

bone 138 

bone 124 

bone 110 

bone 96 

bone 82 

bone 68 

bone 54 

bone 40 

bone 26 

bone 12 

bone 



eggs 
eggs 
eggs 
eggs 
eggs 
eggs 
eggs 
eggs 
eggs 
eggs 
eggs 
eggs 
eggs 
eggs 



would read three finger abdomen, in good condition, 1-16 
(one sixteenth) Pelvic Bone. We look on No. 3 chart at 1-16 
Pelvic Bone and find that this hen is a 180 egg type. 

We will drop her and take another. She may be another 
three finger abdomen hen like Fig. 14. She may be in good 
condition like Fig. 19 and her Pelvic Bone may be 1-2 inch 
thick, like Fig. 28. She would read three finger abdomen, 



THE CALL OF THE HEN. ^^ 

good condition, one-half inch Pelvic Bone. We will look on 
No. 3 Chart, at 1-2 in. Pelvic Bone and find this hen is an 
82 egg type hen. We will take another hen. She may be 
three fingers abdomen like Fig. 14. She may be in good con- 
dition like No. 19 and her Pelvic Bones may be 3-4 inch (three- 
fourths inch thick), as in Fig. 29. We will read her as a three 
fingered hen, in good condition, 3-4 Pelvic Bone. We will look 
on No. 3 chart at 3-4 inch Pelvic Bone and find she is a twenty- 
six egg type hen. 

We will pick up another hen. She may be three fingers 
capacity as in Fig. 14. She may be three fingers out of condi- 
tion as in Fig. 22, and her Pelvic Bones may be 1-16 of an 
inch thick as in Fig. 24. We would read this hen as three 
fingers abdomen; three fingers out of condition and l-16th 
(one sixteenth) Pelvic Bone. When a hen is three fingers out 
of condition, she is in a serious way. She may have been set- 
ting or laying heavy and have been underfed. In either case, 
good care and plenty of the right kind of feed will bring her 
back into condition, provided she has not contracted tubercu- 
losis, (going light) or some other wasting disease, I will 
cite a couple of cases, out of hundreds that have come under 
my observation, one was a barred rock hen that I intended to 
set on duck eggs. She was six fingers abdomen, in good con- 
dition when I put her on the nest, and 1-4 inch Pelvic Bones. 
That indicated that she was a 235 egg type hen. She was on 
the nest two weeks before the duck eggs arrived and four 
weeks on the duck eggs making six weeks setting. Owing to 
stress of other work and being confined in an out of the way 
place she was somewhat neglected and when the ducklings 
were hatched she was three fingers abdomen and three 
finge.'s out of condition thus indicating a 138 egg type hen. 
Six weeks later she was laying and had developed to six fin- 
gers abdomen which was her normal condition. Another case 
was where a gentleman was in a class that took instructions. 
After the close of the meeting he brought a hen that was 
three fingers out of condition. He said that was his best hen 
and asked me how many eggs she would lay. She was three 
fingers abdomen, three fingers out of condition and 1-16 pelvic 
bones. Pier head and actions indicated perfect health. I told 
him she would lay 180 eggs her first laying year if her condi- 
tion had been the same as it was at the present time but if 
she was my hen I thought I might be able to n^ake her lay 



54 THE CALL OF THE HEN. 

280 eggs. You don't feed her half enough. He replied: "That 
is the only hen I have that lays a white tgg. I got her when a 
pullet before she commenced to lay. She has been laying about 
a year and has laid 176 eggs. I l^ad a small lot of hens at the 
time that were so fat they were dying and I cut dow^i their 
feed and have fed them sparingly ever since so they 
ivould not get too fat and die. I went to his place and found 
he had three types of hens, the typical meat type (one with 
pelvic bones one inch and one-eighth thick), some with pelvic 
bones a half inch thick, and this hen that layed the white eggs 
w'liose pelvic bones were 1-16 of an inch thick, I told him to 
segregate his hens into three lots, and feed them according to 
their type. Give the egg type all the grain they could clean 
up each day in scratching shed with a dry balanced mash be- 
fore them all the time.. The dual purpose type hens should 
be fed all the grain they wished to scratch for, with an occas- 
ional mash and the beef type hens should be fed what grain, 
they could clean up in the scratching shed in about an hour. 
The litter should be good and deep in all cases. I did not 
mention charcoal, grit, shells and green stuff as that is not my 
business. Every man who takes a poultry paper knows that 
part of the business and every person who keeps poultry 
-should take a poultry paper in order to keep ^posted on cur- 
rent poultry topics. 

The gentlemJan wrote me over a year later that he had 
succeeded in bringing" the hen up to normal condition as in 
Fig. 19, but after laying a while she went back to five fingers 
abdomen and one finger out of condition and had layed 238 
eggs her next laying year. 

We will now take another hen. She may be four fingers 
abdomen as in Fig. 15, in good condition as in Fig. 19 and her 
pelvic bones may be (1-16) one sixteenth of an inch thick as 
in Fig. 24. She would read four fingers abdomen, good condi- 
tion 1-16 pelvic bone. If we consult No. 4 chart we will find 
she is a 220 egg type hen. The next hen may be also four 
fingers abdomen as in Fig. 15, in good condition as in Fig. 19, 
with pelvic bones 1-2 inch as in Fig. 28. She would read four 
fingers abdomen in good condition one half inch pelvic bones. 
'We will see by chart No. 4 that this is a 115 egg type hen. Our 
next hen may be a four-finger abdomen hen, condition good, 
pelvic bones 1 inch thick. We would read her as four-finger 
abdomen, condition good, pelvic bones one inch. If wc look 



THE CALL OF THE HEN. ec 

f. ' - 

on No. 4 chart at one inch pelvic bones we will find) this hen 
will lay approximately nothing. 

CHART 4. 

Four Fingers Pelvic Bone. 

1-16 pelvic bone 220 eggs 

1-8 pelvic bone 205 eggs 

3-16 pelvic bone 190 eggs 

1-4 pelvic bone 175 eggs 

! f[ 5-16 pelvic bone 160 eggs 

3-8 pelvic bone. . . . 145 eggs 

7-16 pelvic bone 130 eggs 

1-2 pelvic bone 115 eggs 

9-16 pelvic bone 100 eggs 

t ' 5-8 pelvic bone 85 eggs 

11-16 pelvic bone. . 70 eggs 

3-4 pelvic bone 55 eggs 

13-16 pelvic bone 40 eggs 

7-8 pelvic bone 25 eggs 

15-16 pelvic bone 40 eggs 

1 in. pelvic bone eggs 

Our next hen may be a four fingered abdomen hen one 
finger out of condition, 1-8 pelvic bone. She would indicate u 
205 egg type hen under her present condition but we would 
read her four fingers abdomen one out of condition that 
would mean a five finger hen if in condition one eighth pelvic 
bone. "We look on No. 5 chart at 1-8 pelvic bone and find she 
is a 235 (-gg type hen. 

Our next hen may be a five fingered abdomen hen as in 
Fig. 16. She may be in good condition as in No. 19, and 
her pelvic bones may be 1-16 of an inch as in Fig. 24. She will 
read five lingers abdomen, condition good, pelvic bones 1-16. 
iVV'e look on No. 5 chart at 1-16 pelvic bones and find she is a 
250 egg type hen. 

CHART 5. 
Five Fingers Abdomen. 

1-16 pelvic bone 250 eggs 

1-8 pelvic bone 235 eggs 

j "'^'^r 3-15 pelvic bone 220 eggs 

1-4 pelvic bone 205 eggs 



r5 THE CALL OF THE HEN. ^ 

5-16 pelvic bone 190 eggs . . ^ 

3-8 pelvic bone 175 eggs 

7-16 pelvic bone 160 eggs 

1-2 pelvic bone 145 eggs 

9-16 pelvic bone 130 eggs 

5-8 pelvic bone 115 eggs 

, 11-16 pelvic bone 100 eggs 

3-4 pelvic bone .-. 85 eggs 

13-16 pelvic bone 70 eggs 

7-8 pelvic bone 55 eggs 

15-16 pelvic bone 40 eggs 

1 in. pelvic bone 25 eggs 

1 1-16 pelvic bone 10 eggs 

1 1-8 pelvic bone eggs 

Our next hen may be a five finger abdomen hen as in Figr. 
16; she may be in good condition as in No. 19. and 
her pelvic bones may be 3-8 thick- as in Fig. 27. We would read 
her as five lingers abdomen, good condition, and 3-8 pelvic 
bones. No. 5 chart would show us that she was a 175 egg type 
hen. The next hen may be a five finger abdomen hen, condi- 
tion good, peivic bones one inch thick. She would read fixe 
fingers abdomen, good condition, one inch pelvic bones. The 

chart would indicate that she was a 25 egg type hen. 

The next hen may be a six fingered hen as in Fig. 17. She 
may be in good condition and her pelvic bones may be 1 1-4 
inches thick (one and one fourth inches thick) as in Fig. 31. 
I hear Ihe reader say what breed of a hen has pelvic bones as 
thick as that, or do you mean that both of her pelvic bones 
are one and one fourth inches thick counting them both to- 
gether? No, I mean that each one of her pelvic bones is one 
and one fourths of an inch thick. Counting the bone, gristle, 
fat and flesh (flank) both of the pelvic bones would be two 
and one half inches. When we speak of pelvic bones being so, 
and so thick we always mean one of them. And as to breed. 
This hen is a single comb white leghorn. She is the typical beef 
type. You will see by No. 6 chart that she will lay practically 
nothing and here I will explain this matter, A man once 
brought me a two and a half year old hen that he had trap 
nested for two years, and asked me to tell him bDw many 
eggs she had layed her first laying year. I told him she had 
never laid -an egg. Her abdomen was six fingers, she was in 



THE CALL OF THE HEN. c^j 

good condition, her pelvic bones were one and one fourth of 
an inch thick. He cautioned me to be careful as he had always 
trap-nested his hens and his record showed how many eggs 

CHART 6. 

Six Fingers Abdomen. 

Nervous Temperament. 

1-16 pelvic bone 280 eggs 

1-8 pelvic bone 265 eggs 

3-16 pelvic bone 250 eggs 

1-4 pelvic bone 235 eggs 

5-16 pelvic bone 220 eggs 

Sanguine Temperament. 

3-8 pelvic bone 205 eggs 

7-16 pelvic bone 190 eggs 

f 1-2 pelvic bone 175 eggs 

9-16 pelvic bone 160 eggs 

5-8 pelvic bone 145 eggs 

Bilious Temperament. 

•. 11-16 pelvic bone.. .. 130 eggs 

3-4 pelvic bone 115 eggs Y\ 

13-16 pelvic bone 100 eggs 

7-8 pelvic bone 85 eggs 

15-16 pelvic bone 70 eggs 

L5nnphatic Temperament. 

1 in. pelvic bone 55 eggs 

1 1-16 pelvic bone 40 eggs 

1 1-8 pelvic bone.. 25 eggs 

1 3-16 pelvic bone 10 eggs 

1 1-4 pelvic bone eggs 

tHey had laid. I replied if that is the case her record shows 
that she has never laid an tgg. He said no more then but 
brought me another hen asking me how many will she lay. I 
examined her for capacity. I found she was a six fingered ab- 
domen hen, her condition was good, her pelvic bones Were 
1-16 of an inch thick. They were both alike as to thickness. I 
questioned him as to how he had fed her and if she had been 
sick her first laying year. As he is one of the best breeders in 
the United States I could depend on him knowing what he 
was talking about. I asked him then to take off his hat. I 
could see by the shape of his head he was a strictly honest 
man. I then told him that I had never raised that breed of 
hens. But if it was a Leghorn it would lay 280 eggs its first 
laying year and if a Plymouth Rock it would lay 270.. He re- 



58 THE CALL OF THE HEN. •^ " '^ ' 

plied her trap nest record shows she laid 276 eggs from the 
time she commenced to lay in her 'pullet year, until she had 
Jaid one year. That's alright," I replied, "but what about the 
first hen we examined?" "We have never found any in the 
trap nest from her," he said, "but she might be in the hab't 
of laying in the yard." And as he was offered $1000 for her he 
was very anxious to get some chickens from her. I explained 
to him that while most typical beef hens could be made to lay 
a very small number of eggs in the spring w'hen the crows 
laid, by feeding them a little lean meat, and shrunken wheat 
and bran on a grass plot of white clover (if the blossoms of the 
white clover are clipped off) that his hen could not be made 
to lay as she was a barren hen as indicated by the rigid cord 
that connected both of the pelvic bones together thus indicat- 
ing that nature never intended her to lay. I could name a num- 
ber of professors and physicians that have told me they have 
discovered the same condition after they had taken my les- 
sons. 

The reader will please bear in mind that the two pelvic 
bones of a hen are not always of the same thickness. Some 
hens may have one pelvic bone thicker than the other. When 
this is the case add the two together and half of the number 
will be the right thickness to judge by. For instance, if one 
pelvic bone was one-eighth of an inch and the other was one- 
fourth of an inch the added thickness would be three-eights of 
an inch. Dividing this would give you three-sixteenths as the 
thickness of one pelvic bone. Where one bone is thicker than 
the other the thinnest one is on the left side of the hen. 

Our next hen may be another six fingers abdomen hen as 
in Fig. 17. She may be in good condition as in Fig. 19, her pel- 
vic bones may be 1-8 inch thick as in Fig. 25. She would be a 
265 egg type hen. 

Our next hen may be a six finger abdomen hen in good 
condition, pelvic bones 3-8. She would read six fingers abdo- 
men, good condition, pelvic bones 3-8 of an inch. By consult- 
ing chart No. 6 we will find this is a 205 egg type hen. 

Our next hen may be a six finger abdomen hen in good 
condition, 1-2 inch pelvic bones. This hen will be 175 egg 
type hen. 

Our next hen may be a six finger abdomen hen in good 
condition, pelvic bones one inch. We will look on No. 6 
chart and find that one inch pelvic bones indicates the 55 egg 
type hen. 



THE CALL OF THE HEN. 59 

Our next hen may be a four finger abdomen hen. She may- 
be two fingers out of condition as in Fig. 21 and her pelvic 
bones may be one sixteenth of an inch thick. We would read 
her as four fingers abdomen, two fingers out of condition. This 
would make her a six finger hen if in condition. We look on 
No. 6 chart to 1-16 pelvic bone and find our last hen is a 280 
egg type hen if in condition, and its up to us to put her in con- 
dition and keep her there as nearly as possible. 

I will admit it is a hard proposition to' keep the non-setting 
typical egg type hen in condition but the man that comes the 
nearest to doing so is the best feeder. I will have more to 
say in regard to the matter of condition in the chapter on 
judging utility fowls at the Poultry Shows. This work is a 
matter of line upon line and I must necessarily repeat the 
same matter in some respects time after 1 time. But as this is 
an educational more than an entertaining proposition I hope 
that my reailers will bear with me. 

As I have said before there are three types of hens. The 
hen listed on chart No. 1 as 1-16 pelvic hone is a typical egg 
type hen. Because all she consumes over bodily maintenance 
goes to the production of eggs. The hen listed as 3-8 pelvic 
bone is a dual purpose hen, half of her vitality is used in pro- 
ducing eggs and half in producing meat. The hen listed as 5-8 
is a typical meat type hen. All she consumes goes to the pro- 
duction of meat, except what she uses in bodily maintenance. 
The hen listed as 1-16 pelvic bone on chart No. 2 is a typical 
egg type hen. The hen listed as 3-8 pelvic bone on same 
chart is a dual purpose type hen and the one listed as 
3-4 pelvic bones is a typical meat type hen the same rule fol- 
lows in all the charts. All the hens listed as 1-16 pelvic bone 
are typical egg type hens and they can't be made to pay as a 
meat proposition. The hens listed in the center of each chart 
are the dual purpose hens. They can be used as an egg and as 
a meat proposition. The hens listed on the bottom of each chart 
are the meat type hens. Nature has fitted them for the pro- 
auction of flesh and there is no human agency that can change 
them to a paying egg proposition. 

Between the above three distinct types, there are combin- 
ations of each adjoining types this allows suiificient latitude for 
the preference of each individual breeder. A person can 
breed the typical egg type hen and cock bird with pelvic bones 
1-16 of an inch thick. If he thinks this type is too delicate he 
can breed from the 3-16 pelvic bone stock. This is my favorite 



6o THE CALL OF THE HEN. ^ 

type. The hen of this type is better able to stand the vicissi- 
tudes of the poultry yard than her finer bred sisters. I will 
have more to say along this line in the chapter on broilers. I 
think we have given sufficient examples in chapters 3-4-5-6 
and 7 to enable the reader to examine a hen so he may be able 
to arrive at her approximate value, for the purpose he wishes 
to use her for. 

In a previous chapter we have said there is occasionally 
I'found a' hen seven fingers abdomen. If the reader finds one 
he can score her by chart No. 6 and add fifteen eggs to the 
number indicated. For instance, if the hen is in condition and 
measures seven fingers abdomen and her pelvic bones are 3-8 
ithick,; chart No. 6 would indicate she was a 205 egg type bird, 
we then add 15 eggs to the 205 which gives the hen 220 egg 
capacity. If she is, five finger abdomen and two fingers out of 
condition we call her seven finger abdomen and proceed as 
above which gives us the same results. There are two other 
matters I. wish to call-the attention of the-rea<ler to in this 
place. One is that I have found hens occasionally that laid a 
great deal better by the trap nest than they scored by the 
Hogan test, but it was owing to a mistake made in measuring 
their labdomen, owing to the rear of the breast bone turning 
up sometimes almost an inch over normal shape, thus indicat- 
ing rf smaller abdomen than really was the case. The other 
matter is a more serious one, in fact very serious- in some 
flocks. It. is the bagging down of the abdomen 'over the rear 
of the breast bone. Every hen used in the breeding pen should 
be examined for this defect for if one of them is bred from they 
are almost sure to transmit their weak ovarian system to their 
offspring. Some of these hens will make remarkable egg 
records for a year or so, then will never lay another egg. And 
again, the eggs are liable to be very infertile and more or less 
thin shelled and if you have great numbers of hens can hardly 
tell when these hens stop laying for good unless you trap nest 
them as their Pelvic Bones do not close up as readily as hens 
in normal condition. 

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure in this 
case as it is very easy to prevent all this trouble. I meet hun- 
dreds of the above hens in my visits to poultry plants but never 
have a case in my yards. I examine ajl my- pullets when 
about a year old for possible breeders. If a hen satisfies me as 
to Capacity, Type and Prepotency I then hold her as if I was 



THE CALi. QF THE HEN. ^I 

testing her for capacity except that I hold her by the right leg 
only. I then lay my hand on her breast so that it (my hand) 
will conform to her shape and draw it slowly along her breast 
bone (or keel) from front to rear. When my hand reaches the 
rear, if I feel the slightest indication of her abdomen dropping 
the least bit below the rear of the breast bone I reject the hen 
as a breeder and thereby save myself a world of trouble in the 
future. 

CHAPTER IX. 

PREPOTENCY. 

We will take up in this chapter Prepotency, the 
science of breeding poultry so that we can breed with a 
definite knowledge of what we are doing and not leave it to 
mtuition or chance. . It is an old saying that like begets like, 
rihis seems to be true in some cases but seems not to be true 
in other cases. Students of human nature can readily see 
where it has apparently failed. Some children will resemble 
and act like one parent and some will resemble and act like 
the other parent. Then again some children will be like neither 
of the parents. Breeders of horses and cattle are well aware 
of the variations in offspring from the type and characteris- 
tics of sire and dam. It is more through persistency in. 
breeding, than the general knowledge of any scientific prin- 
ciple that we have succeeded in producing, the grand types of 
animals we see at our State Fairs. The breeding of poultry is 
no exception to the above rule. While some breeders have 
good success in breeding for the desired type of bird, whether 
for fancy, for eggs or for flesh, others will have very poor suc- 
cess. 

The purpose of this chapter is to explain to the breeder 
who has had poor success a method that will enable him to 
breed with the full understanding as to what he is doing. It 
is a well known fact among the clothing trade, that if a woolen 
manufacturer has a sample of cloth presented to him, he can 
manufacture thousands of yards that will be an exact dupli- 
cate of the sample. The same is true in other industries. But 
suppose the reader gives an order to one of our well known 
poultry breeders for 1000 pullets, to be delivered at four 
months old; these pullets to be housed, fed and cared for as the 
breeder designates, and tb' approximately lay a certain number 



6i THE CALL OF THE HEN. • 

of eggs their first laying year, how many breeders do you sup- 
pose could fin the order. Until a majority of them can do so the 
poultry industry will not be on a business basis, but will be 
more or less a gamble. 

I have said that seemingly like does not beget like in 
some cases. We will take, for instance, a hen that is five fin- 
gered abdomen in good condition, 1-4 pelvic bones. She will 
scale up as a 205 egg type hen. We will make up a pen of 
these hens with a 205 egg type cockerel or cock bird, we raise 
100 pullets from this mating and they may scale 175 egg type. 
We then say like does not produce like. Here is where we 
make a mistake. In one sense we are right; in another we are 
wrong. Nature makes no mistakes. We have mated 205 egg 
type male and female and we get as a result 175 egg type pro- 
duct. That's as plain as the nose on one's face and y4e throw 
up our hands in despair and say it's all luck and chance. An- 
other party mates up the same type of birds and gets a lot of 
pullets that average 210 eggs their first laying year. Still an- 
other party mates up the same type of birds and does not get 
a chiclt. 

The reader may smile, but this is no dream. A number 
of such cases have come under my' observation. One case was 
that of a professor in one of the Southern California public 
institutions. He had a pen of twelve Black Minorcas, headed 
by a splendid looking cock bird, also a pen of twelve Andalus- 
ians. He said there was something peculiar about these hens 
and he wanted to know if I could detect it. I tested all the 
Andalusians and told him they should average 140 eggs their 
first laying year and I would expect twelve eggs out of every 
thirteen to be fertile. After testing the Minorcas I told him 
they would average about 160 egg type, but if they were mine 
I would not set any of their eggs wliile they were mated to 
the present cock bird, because I would not expect them to 
hatch and if any did hatch they would be degenerates. He 
said this is the second season I have bred from the birds. I 
always get good hatches from the Andalusians, but although I 
see the rooster serve the hens, I have never been able to hatch 
a chicken from the Minorca pen. I replied he serves the hens 
out of sympathy. 

Another case was a Barred Rock hen, the only one a 
neighbor had in a small f^ock of Houdans. He called me one 
day, saying he had a remarkable pullet at his place and he 



THE CALL OF THE HEN. %^ 

wanted me to call over and tell him how many eggs she would 
lay her first laying year. She had been laying two mnths and 
he was keeping her record. I went with him, tested the hen 
and told him she would lay 250 eggs but I did not think that 
any of them would hatch. After her first laying year was up 
he showed me her record. She had laid 258 eggs and al- 
though he had a good Barred Rock cock bird with her and had 
set a number of settings under hens he failed to hatch a single 
chick. I could cite a great number of such cases. 

In the first of these cases the fault whs with the male bird. 
In the last case the fault was with the hen. In both cases the 
trouble was caused by a lack of Prepotency (amativeness) 
and not through any defect in the anatomy of the birds. Every- 
thing in the universe is governed by certain immutable laws. 
If we understand these laws and can discover a way to control 
them we may be able to use them to our advantage. Does the 
reader ever stop to considen these matters ?,, ,.\\^at in your 
opinion is the greatest eflfort of nature ? The Writef thinks it 
is the effort to reproduce the species in all their different formis 
of animate and inanimate life. If the case was otherwise this 
earth would be barren of grass and shrubs, of flowers, and 
fruits and of every living, moving thing on land and in the 
sea. What a desolate old world this would be with only bare 
dirt and rocks and water. And when we consider what a won- 
derful thing life is can we doubt that nature has made some 
extraordinary provisions for controlling its inception. In the 
wild state the survival of the fittest prevented degenerac}' of 
the species but under domestication birds cannot follow their 
instincts. And their owners should be familiar with nature's 
laws in order to be able to breed intelligently. 

When the writer was twelve years of age he took up the 
stud}^ of human nature and later had help from that great 
teacher, Prof. O. S. Fowler. Years of practice in dissecting 
and in anatomy and in the study of the skulls of animals and 
birds gave me the opportunity to study the construction of the 
different skulls, and classify them as to the known habits of the 
birds or animals under consideration. The knowledge gained 
in this way was of inestimable value in later research in the 
selection and breeding of poultry. I am positive that without 
this early training I never could have accomplished what I 
have. 

After raising my first lot of Leghorns in 1869 I decided to 



64 THE CALL OF THE HEN. 

• 

dispose of all breeds but the Leghorns and light Brahmas. I 
said I would raise Leghorns for eggs and Brahmas for meat Up 
to that time I had not paid much attention to the individual 
laying qualities of the birds. Experience had taught me that 
the Light Brahma when fed right and of the right age made a 
delicious table fowl and I was led to believe the Leghorns 
were all great layers. That was a good many years ago. And 
we have made wonderful discoveries and progress in science 
and the arts since that time. The reader can imagine my sur- 
prise when I found by experience that some of my leghorns 
laid very few eggs and laid them only in the spring months. 
Others laid large numbers and laid late in the fall and early 
winter. In those days we had no cold storage plants and while 
eggs were very cheap in the summer they were very dear in 
the winter and I decided to experiment with my Leghorns 
with a view to getting more eggs in the winter. After a few 
years of study and experiment I mated the best egg type birds 
and from some pens got good results from other pens not so 
good, .^nd fr.om. still others very poor results. . My previous 
studies, in anatomy had enabled me to select the matings from 
birds that were all of the same type, and I expected to raise 
a lot of poultry that would be duplicates of their parents as 
far as their egg-laying qualities were concerned. But after 
numerous experiments in mating the 180 egg type cock bird 
with 180 egg- type hens I found I could not depend on getting 
'definite results. 

Some are born rich some are born handsome, and some 
are born lucky. The writer was born with none of these gifts 
but with a combination of faculties that compelled to inven- 
tion. To wander and toil and delve in the fields and the by- 
ways and the mines of the mysterious. These researches with 
the aid received by studying the pioneers in the same lines of 
investigation led to the discovery as the writer thinks of the 
fundamental principle that underlies the reproduction of the 
species. . After a number of matings that were more or less 
discouraging failures I decided to look to the brain of the bird 
as the seat of the cause of a great many of the variations be- 
tween the characteristics of the offspring and those of the 
parents. I had previously demonstrated by experiment that 
environment, had an influence on the shaping of the skull of 
the birds. By focusing on, this subject. the skull knowledge I 
had gained in the previous nine years I -wias' led to think that 
the bi;ajn governed most of tlie functions, of the body, and if 



THE CALL OF THE HEN. 



65 



SO why not the reproductive function? I reasoned that as I 
had mated up several pens of the same type of hens with the 
same type of male birds and that as there was no difference in 
their temperaments that the hens all looked alike all weighed 
alike, and were aij in the same condition or in other words 
they were all m poifect condition, (to be more exp'.icii ihe 
hens were tivee hngeis abdomen, pelvic bone 1-15 of an inch 
thick all hens were in good condition, the cock bn "!? v\^ere two 
iing-ers abdomen, in nornic^l condition and pelvic bunes 1-16 of 
an inch thick, all hens were alike and all cock birds were alike 
and all were oLout a year old) — that there must me something 
apart from the anatomy and physiology of the hen that gov- 
erned or in some measure controlled the reproductive funcj; 
tions. As I had exhausted all my resources in the above lines 
I was very reluctantly obliged to enter a new! field of re- 
search — the field of Phrenology. I killed the cock birds that 
h-id' given us the best results, boiled their skulls until free of 
flesh and found them as in No 1, Plate 35. The skulls of the 
cock birds that gave the next best results were like No. 2, 




Plate 35.^-Three Degrees of Amativeness. (Otherwise Called Prepotenqy^) 



66 THE CALL OF THE HEN. 

Plate 35, and the skulls of the cock birds that gave the poor- 
est results were like No. 3, Plate 35. The arrows 4-5 and 6. 
show the base of the brain but the arrow at No. 6 should be 
1-16 of an inch further back to be correct. And right here is 
where we were on the point of the second great 
secret in breeding that would verify the saying that 
like begets like, the first discovery was, that if we 
wished to raise pullets that would be good layers we would 
have to mate good laying hens with the same type of male 
bird and not with the meat type, that is the male birds would 
have to be of the same temperament, of the same anatomy 
and of the same physiology as the hen. I found that if I had a 
hen that laid 180 eggs by the trap-nest and if I wanted to 
raise a lot of pullets that would average 180 eggs I could not 
depend on the trap nest to aid me any farther' than to tell me 
the number of eggs a hen laid, what particular egg's! she laid, 
and the progeny of each hen, both male and female. I also 
found great variations in type in the mature cockerels from 
each individual hen, which we considered was due to the dif- 
ference in type of the male bird and the difference in vitality 
qf one or both birds at different times during the breeding 
season, sometimes the hen at other times the cock bird trans- 
mitting their characteristics. When I was assured of this 
jthrough numerous experiments we reasoned that our failures 
were because the male birds were of a different type from the 
hens, and when I had demonstrated that the male birds were 
of a different physiology by practice and scientific measures 
and mated accordingly I flattered myself with the assurance 
that I had discovered all that was necessary in order to breed 
poultry intelligently, but after more experiments I was not 
wholly satisfied with results; and as I had adopted the motto, 
'■'Like begets like" I reasoned that although the birds we had 
mated were alike as far as we could see, the remaining differ- 
ence must be some place where I had failed to look for it. My 
knowledge of the different variations in form of the skulls of 
animals and birds of the same breed together with the knowl- 
edge I possessed of human skulls led me to investigate the 
head as the only remaining factor in the problem. \\'hen I re- 
duced this proposition to a method I was able to meas- 
ure its potentiality. Then I assembled the hens and cock 
birds. Mating the 180 egg type hens and the 180 egg type 
cock bird each bird with the same degree of prepotency. Then 
and not until then had I ever knowingly mated like to like. 



THE CALL OF THE HEN. 67 

For a great many years, like many others, I thought I had mat- 
ed males to like females but I was mistaken. And here is 
where I discovered my second great secret. After this I mated 
like to like more intelligntly and the results were more satis- 
factory. I consider the selecting of the male birds for mat- 
ing along anatomical and physicological lines together with 
the proper understanding and use of the faculty, that governs 
the reproductive function as the greatest discoveries ever 
made in the poultry industry. The reader may think there is 
very little difference in the skulls on Plate 35. If you add an 
inch to the length of a man's legs it does not seem to make 
much dift'erence in his height but if you add an inch to the end 
of his nose it would make a great dift'erence to his looks. I 
found this expansion on the back of the skull.^correspended to 
the organ of amativeness in the human family. I found that 
:w^hen it was large in both male and female the parents pos- 
sessed' the ability to transmit their PREDOMINATING 
CHARACTERISTICS to their offspring. If the parents were 
fancy birds their progeny would excel, in some cases, their 
parents in feather, vigor and other good qualities if the par- 
ents were of the egg type. Some of the chicks 'would be as 
good and some better layers, and more vigorous- than the 
parents. If of the meat type the progeny would be of a strong- 
er constitution, of a quicker growth and assimilate their food 
better. In a word if both parents have this organ (called pre- 
potency by some) large the chicks will be more likely to be 
equal to, and some will excel, their parents along the lines in 
which the parents predominate.. If the parents have the organ 
small, the chicks will not be so good as the parent stock, but 
wn.ll degenerate along the lines that the parents excel in. If 
a hen is a 200 egg type, and she has this organ small she will 
be just as valuable as an egg producer as if she had the organ 
rlarge, but. she will be of no value as a breeder. She will be an 
old maid from choice, and her eggs will not be fertile, if she 
has the organ small enough. If the male bird has it small his 
eggs will not hatch well; and if small enough they will not 
hatch at all. I have found a few cases where the cock bird had 
the organ of (Amativeness) prepotency large and failed to 
fertilize the eggs, but the cases are very rare and I attribute it 
to weakened or diseased nerves ; as for instance the nerves of 
the teeth or sciatic nerve in the human being. 



68 



THE CALL OF THE HfiN. 




Figure 36. — Holding Hen Ready to Put in Sack. 
Fig. 36 shows how to hold a hen before putting her in a 
sack to measure this organ. 




Figure 37. — ^Holding Legs With Right Hand and Gathering Sack Arountf 

I^gs With Left Hand. 

Fig. 2i7 shows how to put her in the sack, holding legs with 
right hand, with back of hen against bottom of sack, and gath- 
ering sack around legs with left hand. 

Fig. 38 shows tying sack around legs so that she cannot 
move while examining her for prepotency. (Cut a little off of 
the corner of the sack, just enough to get her head through. 
Hen in cut 38 is too far out of the sack.) 



THE CALL OF THE HEN. 



69 




Figure 38.— Tying Sack Around Legs So Hen Cannot Move While 
Examining Her For Prepotency. 

The best way for a beginner to learn how to handle a hen 
for prepotency is to select a hen you wish for the table. Cut 
the corner of a gunny sack, hold her as in cut 36, put your 
hen in sack and tie her as in Fig. 37 and 38, then make a hook 
of wire or a hair pin, attach it to a string with small weight or 
stone, hang hen up against barn or shed head down, back 
against building, take long-bladed pocket or other knife with 
sharp point, insert in hen's mouth and draw across the roof of 
the mouth at the back of the brain, at the junction of the neck, 
severing the blood veins, then immediately force the knife 
through the roof of the mouth into the brain. The knife 
should be forced well into the brain, which will sever the 
nerves and the bird will feel no pain ; then insert hook in the 
nostril and the weight will hold the neck straight. The hen 
should bleed freely. After bleeding has stopped clean mouth 
and surrounding parts of blood and place hen in some conven- 
ient place as in Fig. 39. The thumb nail on the left hand and 
nail on the forefinger of the right hand should be longer than 
the thumb and finger so the flesh on end of thumb and finger 
will not prevent the nail from entering the slight depression 
between the skull and neck. 

We will suppose the reader has handled the hen as suggest- 
ed above. Lay the dead hen as in Fig. 39, take hold of comb or 
head and pull neck up with right and and while holding head up 
so neck will be stretched out turn the head down with right 
hand so the back of the head will point up and beak will point 



70 



THE CALL OF THE HEN. 



down as much as possible. This will make the projection of 
the brain No. 1, Plate 35 appear more prominent so it will be 
easier to locate it; then draw ball of thumb of left hand down 
on head until you feel back of skull ; when you feel back of 
skull with ball of thumb then turn first joint of thumb down 
until thumb nail fits in between end of skull and neck and well 
up ag-ainst base of brain; then while holding left hand and 
thumb as in Fig. 39 put forefinger of right hand at base of 
brain behind the ear as in Fig. 39 between the neck and the 
skull and against the skull behind the ear as in Fig. 39. The 
ear can be readily discovered by lifting up the hairy covering 
that covers it. The thumb nail must be held perfectly straight 
across the neck as in the cut, and not sideways ; and the fore- 
finger must be held perfectly at right angles with the thumb, 
or the length of projection at arrow 1, plate 35, from the base 
of the brain arrow 4, Plate 35 cannot be measured accurately. 
The reader will notice that my thumb nail is ahead of my 
forefinger nail in cut 39. This indicates that this hen is whol- 
ly lacking in the ability to transmit any redeeming qualities to 





■ V i^i^i? 



''"**^ ^^ 




vS^** 




IFigure 39. — Showing Thumb % of an inch Ahead of Forefinger Indicatin.? 

Hon ip TctaliV Lacking in Prepotencj'. 
her offspring, also that she has no desire for offspring. 
If this was a male bird the eggs from his matings would be 
infertile. Fig. 40, shows thumb on line with forefinger. Mat- 
ings from this type of head would not produce very fertile 
eggs, and the progeny would deteriorate each year if they 
were bred from stock with heads like this. If the parents were 



THE CALL OF THE HEN. 



71 



200 egg type, their egg yield and vitality would be reduced 
each generation of breeding. If they were of the beef type 




Figure 40. — Thumb Even With Forefinger Indicating She Has 
Prepotency Small, 
their vitality and ability to produce flesh economically would 
diminish with each generation. If they were a fancy type the 
breeder would be up aganst a stone w^all of discouraging ex- 
periences. 




.^igux» 41. — Showing Thumb % of an Inch Behind Forefinger Indicating 
Hen Has Prepotency Full. 



72 



THE CALL OF THE HEN. 




IPigure 42. — Showing Thumb i/4 Inch Behind Forefinger indicating Hea 

Has Prepotency Large. 




Figure 43. — Showing How to Hold Bird Between Knees After You Become 
Proficient in Testing Head While Bird Is In Sack. 



THE CALL OF THE HEN. 7J 

Cut No. 41 shows a hen with prepotency full, i. e., thumb 1-S 
of an inch behind forefinger. Sometimes a poultryman will be 
lucky enough to mate up a lot of pens of the right type for his 
purpose with heads like No. 41. His business prospers and his 
neighbors call him lucky. While others are going bankrupt 
raising poultry he holds his own and is making a good living. 
No. 42 shows a hen with an excellent head for breeding pur- 
poses. The thumb in this case is one fourth of an inch behind 
the fore finger. If this hen is mated to a male bird of the 
same type and prepotency her eggs will be very fertile and a 
large number of the progeny will be equal to and some will 
excel the parent stock in the lines that predominate in the 
parents. By selecting these few specimens each season for 
breeding, it is possible to breed a highly valuable type in the 
course of time. Cut No. 43 shows how to hold bird between 
knees after you become proficient in testing head while bird 
is in sack. 



^■4 



THE CALL. OF THE HEN. 

CHAPTER X. 

TESTING HENS ON A LARGE SCALE USING 

CHARTS 44 AND 45. 

I will describe in this chapter how I cull hens when we 
have large numbers of them as we have in poultry plants in 
California. I shall take it for granted that the reader has no 
method of selecting the good from the poor layers, except, 
perhaps, the "Walter Hogan System," or some of its pirated 
forms that are now used extensively in all parts of the civiliz- 
ed world, and which is based on the theory that the value of 
a hen as an egg producer depends on the relative distance 
apart of her Pelvic Bones and the thinness of same. We will 
suppose the reader has three hundred hens, one lot is about 
a year and four months old, another lot is about two years and 
four months old, and another lot is about three years and four 
months old. Each lot has been kept in separate yards, so 
there can be no mistake in regard to their ages, or they have 
been toe punched or otherwise marked. We notice more or 
less feathers flying around the yard, thus indicating the season 
of the year when moulting is near at hand. Everything else be- 
ing equal the poorest hen moults first, and if she »s a very poor 
layer, she will stop laying when she begins to moult, and will 
not lay again until the crows lay in the spring. W^e consider it 
IS about time to cull out the poor layers and send them to mar- 
ket. The next thing that comes to mind is the question, 
^'What is a poor layer?" That all depends on the price you 
get for the eggs, the price of feed, houses, etc. I raised poul- 
try in Todd Co., Minn., in 1886 and 1887, and sold good lumber 
at the saw mill for $5.00 per 1000 feet. Wheat was about a 
cent per pound and wheat screenings for chicken feed could be 
had for the hauling. It is very evident that a poorer class of 
layers might have been kept at a greater profit when supplies 
were at that low price, than can be profitably kept when sup- 
plies are as high priced as they are at the present time of writ- 
ing, June 1913. So the reader can see that the matter of the 
profitable hen is a local matter. At this w'riting you can buy 
nearly two bushels of wheat in some parts of Minnesota for 
what you will pay for one in California. I was told a few days 
ago that you could buy twice as much oats at the present time 
in Minnesota as you can in California for the same money. 



THE CALL. OP THE HEJN. 



fs 



When studying chart 44 and 45, we see there are certain fig- 
ures lined off from the rest. This is for the purpose of aiding 
the reader at a certain time each year to select the poor lay- 
ers from the good ones without using the charts, thereby sav- 
ing the time necessary to look over the chart and classify each 
hen. 

The charts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 as the reader will learn by 
bearing in mind the following instructions, need be used only 
to determine the laying score of the individual hen. 

The first figure underlined in chart 44 is in the column indi- 
cating three fingers abdomen from one-sixteenth pelvic bone to 



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THE CALL OF THE HEN. 



five-sixteenth pelvic bone. The second is in the column indicat- 
ing four fingers abdomen from one-sixteenth pelvic bone to. 
seven-sixteenth pelvic bone. The third is live fingers abdomen 
from one-sixteenth to nine-sixteenth pelvic bone. The fourth is 
six fingers abdomen from one-sixteenth pelvic bone to eleven- 
sixteenth pelvic bone. 

We will make a copy of charts 44 and 45 on a piece of 
white card board, and hang them up in a convenient place in 
the yard where the sixteen-months old hens are penned. We 
will suppose that the hens are all closed in the house or houses. 
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-^ THE CALL OF THE HEN. 77 

in same as in Fig. 1. When there are enough hens in the 
coop, shut down slide door that holds them in. In this case it 
is necessary to keep only four figures in mind, any four you 
prefer will do. Here in California I use Figs. 5-7-9-11, for the 
hens sixteen-months old. Figs. 3-5-7-9 for the hens twenty- 
eight-months old, and Figs. 1-3-5-7, for hens forty-months old. 
We keep large numbers of hens, and in this way we can sort 
out the market hens each year in a short time, as we do not 
have to stop and figure out the percentage of loss for each 
year of age, as these figures come near enough to suit our 
purpose. If they do not suit the local market the reader can 
use any figures that will 

Now take a hen out of the catching coop as in Fig. 3, and 
hold her as near as possible as in Fig. 5. Place hand on abdo- 
men. She may be one finger abdomen in good condition, her 
pelvic bone may be one-sixteenth of an inch thick, her capac- 
ity is three dozen eggs her first laying year. She has laid all 
these eggs, and will lay no more until the next spring, when 
the crows lay and eggs are cheap. So we decide to put this hen 
in the shipping crate, to be sent to market. We take another 
hen from the catching coop, and go through the same process. 
She may be a two fingered abdomen hen in good condition, 
her pelvic bones one-sixteenth of an inch thick. This indicates 
a hen that may lay eight dozen eggs her first laying year. As 
a rule when hens are so fed and cared for* they will lay their 
maximum number of eggs their first laying year. They will 
as a rule lay about 15 per cent less each year after, provided 
they arc given the same care and feed. In this case the hen 
in hand would lay about eight-five eggs. If you think that will 
pay you let the hen drop out of your hands into the yard 
where you are standing. If you think it will not pay to keep 
her, put her in the shipping crate for the market. The next 
hen may be two fingers abdomen, one finger out of condition 
as in Fig. 20, with pelvic bones one-fourth of an inch thick. If 
this hen's comb and wattles are red and the hen is strong and 
active, being one finger out of condition indicates that she is 
not being properly cared .for, either in feed or environment, or 
both. In the condition she is in at present, if continued the 
whole year, she would lay about sixty-nine eggs, while if kept 
in normal condition she would lay 138 eggs. (See chart No. 3.) 
So we call her a good hen and drop her. 

The next hen may be a three finger abdomen, five-six- 



78 THE CATiTi OF THE HEN. 

tecnths pelvic bone, and in normal condition. If this hen was 
in Petaluma we would drop her as she would be a paying hen. 

The next hen may be three fingers abdomen in ' normal 
condition as in Fig. 19, and pelvic bone three-eights of an inch 
thick. We put this hen in the shipping crate for market as it 
will not pay to keep her any longer if in Petaluma. She will 
not pay for her board after this time and leave enough profit 

The next hen may be four fingers abdomen in normal 
condition, and seven-sixteenths of an inch pelvic bone. She be- 
ing a 130 egg hen it will pay to keep her another year so we 
drop her. The next hen may be four fingers abdomen in normal 
condition, and one-half inch pelvic bones. This hen will lay 
approximately 115 eggs her first laying year, but not enough 
her second year. So we put her in the shipping crate for mar- 
ket. 

The next hen may be a five fingers abdomen hen and in 
good condition, nine-sixteenths pehac bone. She is 130 egg 
type hen so we drop her. 

The '/iCxt hen is five' fingers abdomen in normal condi- 
tion, and five-eights of an inch pelvic bones. This is a 115 egg 
hen so we put her in the shipping crate. 

The next hen may be six fingers abdomen in normal 
condition, and eleven-sixteenths pelvic bones. She will be a 
130 egg type hen, s5 we drop her. 

The next hen may be six fingers abdomen in normal con- 
dition, pelvic bones three-fourths of an inch thick. She will be 
a 115 egg" type hen so we will put her in the shipping crate. 

The next hen may be three fingers abdomen three fingers 
out of condition, and one-eighth of an inch pelvic bones. If 
her comb and wattles are pale and bloodless, she is no doubt 
diseased and should be disposed of, but if her comb and wattles 
are red, it indicates, as a rule, that she is out of condition on 
account of accident or lack of feed. In her present condition 
she scores 166 egg type. If we get her in one finger better 
condition she will measure four fingers abdomen and score 
205 egg type. If we can get her in two finger better condition, 
she will measure five finger abdomen and may be three-six- 
teenths pelvic bones, on account of becoming a little more 
fleshy, and score 220 egg type and if we can get her in three 
fingers better condition, she would then be in normal condi- 
tion, and her pelvic bones might be three-sixteenths or one- 
fourth of an inch thick, if the latter she would score 235 egg 



THE CALL OF THE HEN. <Jx\ 

type. (We will have more to say on the changing of thickness 
of the pelvic bone, in last of chapter 18.) 

We will conri'nue i^r-lecting or separating the good from 
^^\^ poor layers, in the same manner, keeping every hen for 
another year in the three finger abdomen class that is five- 
sixteenths of an inch pelvic bone and thinner, sending every 
hen to market that is over five-sixteenths of an inch pelvic 
bone in the t.' tee hngrr abdomen class, keeping every hen in 
the four linger abdomen class that is seven-sixteenths of an 
inch pelvic bone and thinner, and sending every hen to market 
that is over seven-sixteenths pelvic bone in the four finger ab- 
domen class, keeping e\ery hen in the five finger abdomen 
class that is nine-sixteenths of an inch pelvic bone and thinner, 
and sending every hen to market that is over nine-sixteenths 
of an inch pelvic bone thick, keeping every hen in the six finger 
abdomen class rhat is eleven-sixteenths of an inch pelvic bone 
and thinner, and sending every hen to market that is over 
eleven-sixteenths of sn inch pelvic bone thick. 

I want to say ncre that there is nothing arbitary in regard 
to the chart- 44 and 45. Each poultryman can draw the lines 
where he i.hinks it will best suit his purpose. A great many 
years of experimenting has led the writer to believe these 
charts answer the purpose very well. 

We have disposed of all the one year and four-months old 
hens, and will move our outfit to the two year and four-months 
old hens, and arrange catching coop and charts as in the first 
case. 

The first hen we take from the coop may be a one finger- 
ed hen in good condition. All one and two fingered hens in 
good condition over one year and four-months old, as a rule 
should be disposed of. There is no profit in them after they 
have laid their alloted number of eggs their first season, or in 
other words, after they commence to moult in their first lay- 
ing vcar. So after this we will not consider them in this con- 
iiection. There is a great difference in the number of eggs a 
flock of hens will lay each year as they grow older. Some will 
lose 5 per cent, some 10 per cent, some 15 per cent, and some 
20 per cent. Some will not lay anything (This will be ex- 
plained later) after their first laying year. It depends alto- 
gether on the vitality of the hen and how she has been fed 
and raised, and the variations in the percentage of eggs laid by 
exactly the same type of hens will vary with different poultry 



8o THE CALL OF THe HEN. 

keepers, and also with the same poultry keeper, varying more 
or less in each separate pen proving that environment has 
more or less to do with egg production, all other things as faf^ 
as human knowledge is concerned being equal. Some people 
who aie good mathematicians, but who are wholly ignorant 
of animal nature, look surprised when I explain to them the 
difference between classifying the production of a number of 
like machines, with the production of a number of hens of the 
same score in egg production. As a scientific proposition it is 
impossible to write a chart before hand that will fit every case. 
If we look 1000 hens of any pronounced type, say 100 egg type 
w!.ich v%^ere fed. housed, and cared for in exactly the same 
manner, and one of them laid five, ten or fifteen eggs more or 
less some year than the other 999 hens, it would prove our 
conteniion or theory, from a scientific point of view. I am sure 
that one hundred expert poultrymen could take 100 hens of 
the sanie general type, that would score the same egg capacity 
and w^ould all be in the same condition, and each poultryman 
feed and care for his 100 birds for four years the best, he knew 
hov/, and very few of them would agree on a set of figures that 
■would give the percentage of decrease in egg production each 
year. The one who fed the heaviest and produced the most 
eggs, would have the largest percentage of decrease, while the 
ones who bred for hatching eggs, and did not force their hens 
■with condiments and stimulants, would get the least number 
of eggs and the lowest percentage of decrease, not figuring the 
percntage of decrease from the number of eggs actually laid 
but from what the hen would lay each year. 

The writer does not claim that he has dicovered a system 
that will infallably give results just as he has written them. 
No poultry man needs to be told this, but for the benefit of 
the amateurs I have inserted the above caution. The writer 
claims by years of investigation and practice to have formu- 
lated a poultry code as contained in this book, that is com- 
mercially the approximation of perfection. 

We will return to our two year old hens. We said all one 
and two fingered hens should be sold, and We will consider 
them no more than to put them in the market crates when we 
find one. The reader will remember that in selecting the six- 
teen-months old hens we retained only those in the three, four, 
five and six finger abdomen column, that measured five, seven, 
nine and eleven-sixteenths of an inch or less, and everything 
below these lines went to market. In the show room when the 



THE CALL OF THE HEN. Si 

writer judges utility birds we use the charts so as to score each 
bird according to its capacity for egg production, but when we 
cull the poultry on commercial plants, in order to save the 
time of looking on the charts we keep in mind only four fig- 
ures, for the hens of any age that we are examining. For hens 
about sixteen-months old we use the figures five, seven, nine, 
eleven. For hens with three fingers abdomen we use the fig- 
ures five-sixteenths; for four fingers abdomen seven-sixteen- 
ths; for five fingers abdomen, nine-sixteenths; and for six 
fingers abdomen, eleven-sixteenths. All under three fingers 
abdomen goes to the market and all under the lines go also. 

For the two year and four-months old hens, we keep in 
mind the following figures, three, five, seven, nine. For the 
three fingers abdomen hen three-sixteenths pelvic bone; four 
finger abdomen hen, five-sixteenths pelvic bone; five finger 
abdomen hen, seven-sixteenths pelvic bone, and six finger ab- 
domen hen, nine-sixteenths pelvic bone. Everything below 
these figures goes to market, also all one and two fingered ab- 
domen birds there may be in the lot. 

We now go to the hens that are three years and four- 
months old. Any one and two fingered abdomen birds that we 
may find goes to market, and all the three fingered abdomen 
birds below one-sixteenth pelvic bones. For the three years 
and four-months old birds we bear in mind one, three, five, 
seven. Three fingers abdomen hen, one-sixteenth pelvic bones; 
four fingers abdomen hen, three-sixteenths pelvic bones ; five 
fingers abdomen hen, five-sixteenths pelvic bones, and six fin- 
gers abdomen hen, seven-sixteenths pelvic bones. All below 
these lines go to market. 

If the reader has some good hens that he wishes to breed 
from, he can use the Figs. 1, 3, 5. 

The fourth year when he washes to select from the four, 
five and six fingered abdomen hens it will be four fingers abdo- 
men, one-sixteenth pelvic bones ; five fingers abdomen, 
three-sixteenths pelvic bones; and six fingers abdomen five- 
sixteenths pelvic bones. Very few will want to keep hens as 
long as this. They will be five years and about four-months 
old when you will sell them. Most people here sell them about 
the time they commence to moult, after they are two years old, 
but I selected the hens used at the California State poultry ex- 
periment station, to test this method as far as the egg laying 
<5ualities were concerned, and the hens X selected as hens that 



82 THE CALJj OF THE HEN. • 

would pay at four years, made a good paying record. 

The reader will understand that the way we have just 
been selecting the paying hens is the way we select when we 
have large numbers. This is the way I selected sixteen hun- 
dred hens in six hours at the poultry farm of the Ukiah State 
Hospital, Mendocino Co., Calif., and at other State hospitals 
and poultry plants. We do not have to stop to figure out the 
percentage of loss of each bird. You can take any combina- 
tion of figures you wish, as 1-4 in., 3-8 in., 1-2 in., 5-S 
in., for sixteen-months old birds; 1-16 in., 3-16 in., 5-16 
in., 7-16 in., for twenty-eight months old birds, you can 
figure out the percentage of loss each year, and take a com- 
bination of figures that will suit your purpose. You have 
only to carry four figures in your mind. The percentage of 
loss each year is computed by good poultrymen to be from 
10 per cent to 20 per cent in egg production on plants that 
are run for hatching eggs. If you forced your hens with an 
excess of meat and condiments the loss will be according to 
how you feed them, and no one can tell what it may be but 
yourself. Some poultrymen get all there is in a hen out ol 
her the first season then sell her. 

CHAPTER XI. 

THE MALE BIRD. 

This is not a treatise on cattle or horses, but we have 
to use them very often to illustrate the matter in hand. 
Stock raising has been brought to more of a science than poul- 
try raising and is well understood by thousands of our pro- 
gressive farmers. I have met hundreds of them who could 
describe to me the points I would have to consider in selecting 
a good paying butter fat, beef or milk proposition, both in dam 
and sire, and while there may be as many poultrymen who un- 
derstand the selection of poultry, both male and female, for egg 
and meat production, I have failed to meet them, and while I 
was made the butt of ridicule by the poultrymen when I issued 
my first pamphlet entitled the "Walter Hogan System," in 
March, 1905, the stock raisers who were interested in poultry 
stood by me to a man. The reason was that the cattle men had 
been studying along the utility lines in both sire and dam, in 
order to develop the milk, butter fat, and beef producing capac- 



THE CALL OF THE HEN. 83; 

ities of their cattle. It was a comparatively easy proposition 
for them. The form of the animals was plainly to be seen. 
They were not covered with a coat of fluff and feathers that hid 
the shape and form of the subject. It was easy to distinguish 
between the cat ham of the butter fat type, and the full deep 
ham of the beef type. It was no trouble to', compare the ud- 
ders, milk veins, and wedge shape type of the Jersey, with the 
full rounded build of the Hereford or Poled Angus . 

On the other hand the poultrymen to some extent were 
deceived by the appearance of their hens. Take for instance the 
Cochin and the Bantam. They would hold about the same re- 
lation to each other as the lordly Durham would to the fine 
bred Devon, yet I have found Bantam hens with as deep abdo- 
men as a great Cochin hen; and it is my opinion that if poultry 
were as bare of feathers as cattle are, the poultry industry 
w^ould be as far advanced at present as is the cattle business. 

The greatest impediment to the successful breeder of 
poultry has been the inability to select the male bird of the re- 
quired type. The custom in vogue at the present writing with! 
most poultrymen is to trap nest their hens and raise cockerels 
from the best layers as indicated by the trap nest. The trouble 
with this method is that while the hen may lay a large number 
of eggs, she may not have the faculty to transmit her laying 
qualities to her offspring, and her cockerels may be deficient 
in both egg-laying qualities and the ability to transmit what 
good qualities they may possess to their progeny. 

Again I have seen a great many cases where poultry 
farmers would send aw^ay and buy a lot of cockerels. The man 
that raised and sold them had no knowledge of how to classify 
them, and the man who bought them knew he was buying 
cockerels and that is all he did know about them. He could not 
be sure whether they w^ould increase his egg yield or not.. He 
had to pay his money and take chances. It was nothing more 
or less than a gamble. But the days of gambling in the poultry 
business are past for the intelligent progressive poultryman. 
No longer will he be obliged to trust to luck or intuition. He 
will be able to select his male birds with as much assurance as 
his hens, and instead of groping in the dark he will have the 
satisfaction of seeing and knowing just what he is doing, by 
bearing in mind the instructions in this chapter. The reader 
will by this time be familiar with the different types and capac- 



g^' THE CAIAi OF THE HEN. 

it'ies of hens, and will not be surprised to learn there is a simi- 
lar number of variations in the male birds; and if one wishes to 
prdduce a certain type and capacity in a pullet or cockerel, he 
niust select the parent birds that will produce that type. We 
know how to select the hen, we will now take up the study of 
how to select the male bird. 

We go through the same movements in selecting or test-' 
ing the male bird as we do in selecting the hen, but we use a 
difterent set of charts. For example it is possible for a hen to 
change from six to three fingers in abdominal capacity within 
a month, and be healthy and active and in another month to 
return back to her original six fingers capacity. But it is not so 
with' the male bird, after he is mature. I have tested male 
birds at nine months of age that scored four fingers abdomen, 
one-sixteenth pelvic bone, that did not change for four years 
except that their pelvic bone being one-sixteenth of an inch 
tliick at nine months old, I have found them to be one-eighth 
of. an inch thick at eighteen months old. They had increased 
in thickness of bone from one-sixteenth to one-eighth. These 
Were egg type male birds. The meat type will vary more or 
less in the thickness of the pelvic bones depending on how 
much flesh they put on or lose, between the different times of 
42xamining them. 

It will be easy to distinguish the egg type cock bird from 
the meat type bird. The former has thin pelvic bones whether 
in flesh or not. While the latter has thick pelvic bones with a 
more or less lump of gristle on the end of them whether he is 
thin or in good flesh. I have found that in classifying the male 
bird as we have the hen as to type and capacity for a certain 
egg yield it requires less abdominal capacity in the male bird 
than in the female. For instance, the male bird that is two 
fingers abdomen and one-sixteenth of an inch pelvic bone is 
the same type and capacity for breeding purposes as the three 
finger abdomen hen one-sixteenth pelvic bone. The male of the 
same class as regards capacity does not require as large abdo- 
men as the female. This is so self evident that it would be a 
waste of time to try to explain the reason for it. 

I have heard poultrymen say that the male bird is half of 
the flock. I wonder if they stop to consider whether this is so 
or not. My birds are wonderful layers, and I mate one male 
bird i:o every twelve hens, and from a breeder's point of view I 
consider my male birds a great deal more than half the flock. 



TH^ CALL OF THE HEN. 



«s 



If I mate 100 egg type cock birds with 200 egg hens the 
progeny may lay about 150 eggs, thus reducing my egg yield 
about 25 per cent in the progeny of each of the twelve hens. 
For this reason I have given as much thought to the male bird 
as I have to the hen, and in arranging the charts for the male 
birds, have experienced a great deal of difficulty, as it takes 
years of time and hundreds of matings to arrive at conclusions 
that would be approximately correct. In any one case, as 
everything else (type capacity and breed) being equal, care 
and environment has a dominating influence on the product 
whether eggs or meat, consequently if a number of investigat- 
ors were working on this proposition using the same system 
of selection they could not help but arrive at somewha': differ-< 
ent conclusions, as to figures but that would not affect the 
value of the system. 



1-16 

1-8 

3-16 

1-4 

5-16 

3-8 

7-16 

1-2 

9-16 

5-8 



MALE BIRD— CHART A. 
One Finger Abdomen. 



pelv 
pelv 
pelv 
pelv 
pelv 
pelv 
pelv 
pelv 
pelv 
pelv 



11-16 pelv 



c bone 84 egg 

c bone 75 egg 

c bone 67 egg 

c bone 58 ess 

c bone 50 egg 

c bone 41 

c bone 33 

c bone 24- egg 

c bone 16 egg 

c bone 7 egg 

c bone egg 



egg 



type 
type 
type 
type 
type 
type 
type 
type 
type 
type 
type 



MALE BIRD— CHART B. 
One and One Half Finger Abdomen. 

1-16 pelvic bone 132 egg type 

1-8 pelvic bone 120 egg type 

3-16 pelvic bone 109 egg type 

1-4 pelvic bone 98 egg type 

5-16 pelvic bone.. 87 egg type 

3-8 pelvic bone 75 egg type 

7-16 pelvic bone 64 egg type 

1-2 pelvic bone.. .. 53 egg type 

9-16 pelvic hone. . 42 egg type 



M 



THE CALL OF THE HEN. 



5-8 pelvic bone..- 30 egg type 

11-16 pelvic bone 19 egg type 

3-4 pelvic bone 8 egg type 

13-16 pelvic bone egg type 

7-8 pelvic bone egg type 



1-16 


pelvic 


1-8 


pelvic 


3-16 


pelvic 


1-4 


pelvic 


5-16 


pelvic 


3-8 


pelvic 


7-16 


pelvic 


1-2 


pelvic 


9-16 


pelvic 


5-8 


pelvic 


11-16 


pelvic 


3-4 


pelvic 


13-16 


pelvic 


7-8 


pelvic 



MALE BIRD— CHART C. 

Two Fingers Abdomen. 

bone 180 

bone 166 

bone 152 

bone 138 

bone 124 

bone 110 

bone 96 

bone 82 

bone 68 

bone . . . . 54 

bone 40 

bone 26 

bone 12 

bone 



egg 
^Sg 
egg 
^gS 
^gg 
^gg 
^gg 
^gg 

egg 
^gg 
^gg 

pcrcr 



type 
type 
type 
type 
type 
type 
type 
type 
type 
type 
type 
type 
type 
type 



MALE BIRD— CHART D. 
Two and One Half Fingers Abdomen. 



1-16 


pelvic 


1-8 


pelvic 


3-16 


pelvic 


1-4 


pelvic 


5-16 


pelvic 


3-8 


pelvic 


7-16 


pelvic 


1-2 


pelvic 


9-16 


pelvic 


5-8 


pelvic 


11-16 


pelvic 


3-4 


pelvic 


13-16 


pelvic 


7-8 


pelvic 


15-16 


pelvic 



bone 200 

bone 185 

bone 171 

bone 156 

bone. . . . » 142 

bone 127 

bone 113 

bone 98 

bone 84 



bone, 
bone, 
bone, 
bone, 
bone, 
bone, 



69 
55 
40 
26 
11 




egg type 
egg type 
egg type 
egg type 
egg type 
egg type 
^gg type 
^gg type 
egg type 
^gg type 
^gg type 
^gg type 
^gg type 
^gg type 
^gg type 



1-16 


pelvic 


1-8 


pelvic 


3-16 


pelvic 


1-4 


pelvic 


5-16 


pelvic 


3-8 


pelvic 


7-16 


pelvic 


1-2 


pelvic 


9-16 


pelvic 


5-8 


pelvic 


11-16 


pelvic 


3-4 


pelvic 


13-16 


pelvic 


7-8 


pelvic 


15-16 


pelvic 


1 in. 


pelvic 


17-16 


pelvic 



,-,THE CALL OF THE HE3N. 

MALE BIRD— CHART E. 
Three Fingers Abdomen. 

bone 235 

bone 220 

bone 205 

bone 190 

bone. . 175 

bone 160 

bone 145 



^7 



bone, 
bone 
bone, 
bone, 
bone . 



130 

115 

100 

85 

70 

bone 55 



bone 
bone 
bone 
bone , 



40 

25 

10 





egg 

pcrcr 
pcro- 

ees: 



type 
type 
type 
type 
type 
type 
type 
type 
type 
type 
type 
type 
type 
type 
type 
type 
type 



MALE BIRD— CHART F. 



Three and One-half Fingers Abdomen. 



1-16 

1-8 

3-16 

1-4 

5-16 

3-8 

7-16 

1-2 

9-16 

5-8 

11-16 

3-4 

13-16 pelv 

7-8 pelv 

15-16 pelv 

1 in. pelv 

17-16 pelv 

1 1-8 pelv 



pelv 
pelv 
pelv 
pelv 
pelv 
pelv 
pelv 
pelv 
pelv 
pelv 
pelv 
pelv 



bone. 

bone. 

bone 

bone. 

bone. 

bone 

bone . 

bone 

bone . 

bone . 

bone. 

bone . 

bone. 

bone 

bone. 

bone. 

bone. 

bone. 



,257 

.242 

,227 

,212 

197 

182 

,167 

,152 

137 

,122 

107 

92 

77 

62 

47 

32 

17 





^§g 
^gg 
^gg 
^gg 
^gg 
^gg 
^gg 
^gg 
^gg 
^gg 
^gg 
^gg 
^gg 
^gg 
^gg 
egg 
^gg 
^gg 



type 
type 
type 
type 
type 
type 
type 
type 
type 
type 
type 
type 
type 
type 
type 
type 
type 
type 



88 



THE CALL OF THE HEN. 



1-16 


pelvi 


c 


1-8 


pelvi 


c 


3-16 


pelvi 


c 


1-4 


pelvi 


c 


5-16 


pelvi 


c 


3-8 


pelvi 


c 


7-16 


pelv] 


c 


1-2 


pelv 


c 


9-16 


pelv 


c 


5-8 


pelv 


c 


11-16 


pelv 


c 


3-4 


pelv 


c 


13-16 


pelv 


c 


7-8 


pelv 


IC 


15-16 


pelv 


ic 


1 in. 


pelv 


ic 


17-16 


pelv 


ic 


1 1-8 


pelv 


ic 


1 3-16 pelv 


ic 


1 1-4 


pelv 


ic 



MALE BIRD— CHART G. 

Four Fingers Abdomen. 

bone 280 

bone 265 

bone 250 

bone 235 

bone 220 

bone 205 

bone 190 

bone 175 

bone 160 

bone. . 145 

bone 130 

bone 115 

bone 100 

bone 85 

bone 70 

bone 55 

bone 40 

bone 25 

bone 10 

bone 



egg type 


^Sg 


type 


egg 


type 


^Sg type 


^gg 


type 


Qgg type 


egg type 


^gg 


type 


^gg 


type 


^gg 


type 


^gg 


type 


^gg 


type 


^gg 


type 


^gg type 


^gg 


type 


^gg 


type 


^gg 


type 


^gg 


type 


^gg 


type 


^gg 


type 



We consider the male bird of so much importance thai •••-e 
have made seven charts for his classification, as to egg an-l 
meat types. See charts A,: B, C, D, E, F, and G.. While 
chart A may not be needed, and chart B used very seldom we 
thought it best to include them. All old poultrymen and stock 
raisers know that so many considerations enter into the breed- 
ing and raising of live stock of all kinds, that it is ii'. possible 
to lay down hard and fast rules that can be depended upon 
bclore hand to bring definite results in all parallel cases. This 
is written as a caution to beginners, especially to those whose 
experience has been at the desk or behind the counter. 

Figure 46 shows a cock bird four fingers abdomen and, Fig. 
47 Lhows the same bird one-eighth pelvic bone, makiug him a 
265 egg type bird. 

The reader will see by Figs. 46 and 47, we use the same 
methods to determine the egg value of a male bird, as we use 
for the hen, except that we do not think it advisable to take 



THE CALL OF THE HEN. 




Figure 4f!. — Saov.'ing Four Finger Deptli of Abdomen of 265 Egg Cock Bird. 




Figure 47. — Showing % Inch Pelvic Bone of 265 Egg Cock Bird. 



9^ 



THE CALL OF THE HEN. 



the matter of condition into consideration, or rather it is better 
not to lay down rules in the matter as it is very hard to keep 
the egg type birds in good condition. But I try to keep my cock 
birds in good flesh, and not over one finger out of condition at 
any time. There are times before the male birds are a year old 
and Avhile their bones are soft, that their abdomens will con- 
tract and expand, it depending on whether they are stinted in 
their feed or whether they are fed liberally. Egg type cocker- 
els selected for breeders should have the best care and feed 
(see chapter on selecting cockerels for breeding). In examin- 
ing the male birds for prepotency, the reader should select them 
with the greatest care. I cannot impress this on the reader 
too strongly. They should be as good or better if possible than 
No. 1, plate 35. and do not forget that the thumb nail on the 
left hand and the nail on the forefinger of the right hand (re- 
verse the order if left handed) must be somewhat longer than 
the flesh, if you expect to take correct measurements. 




Figure 48.— Showing 1-16 Pelvic Bone of 280 Egg Type Hen. 



THE CALL OF THE HEN, 



91 




Pigure 49. — Showing Six Fingers Depth of Abdomen of 280 Egg Type Hen. 




Figure 50.— 280 Egg Type Hen and 265 Egg Type Cock Bird. Tail of 
Cock is Somewhat Cramped for Want of room. 



g2 THE CALL OF THE HEN. 

CHAPTER XII. 
SELECTING THE COCKERELS AT BROILER AGE. 

I have tried to impress on the reader the importance of 
the careful selection of the male birds, and perhaps he is fully 
alive to the value of doing so. He starts out at the first op- 
portunity and visits all the poultry plants far and near, with the 
determination to purchase the best male bird he can find. 
Before starting out he decides he will have nothing less than 
200 egg type. Imagine his disappointment, when after hand- 
ling perhaps fifty or more he can find nothing that will come 
any way near the 200 egg type, while if he examined the same 
number of hens he will very likely find at least one or perhaps 
more that will come somewhat near what he is looking for.. 
Then he will say that there is no such bird as the chart de- 
scribes as a 200 egg type cock bird. I wish to say here that I 
think I have at least fifty male birds, at the present writing, 
that will scale from 200 up according to the charts. I have over 
a dozen that will scale from 250 to 265, and these have all been 
developed within six years, from hens with three fingers abdo- 
men and one-fourth inch pelvic bone, mated to cockerels with 
one and one-half finger abdomen, one-sixt-eenth inch pelvic 
bone. 

The first season in California we raised about 300 cocker- 
els up to three months of age. which is within the broiler age 
for this section. We arranged our house and catching coop as 
in Figs. 1 and 2, and went through the same movements that 
we do when testing the hens, except that we do not have to 
use all the tests on each one of the cockerels that we use on 
the hens. We hold the cockerels as in Figs. 5 and 6, and lay 
our hand on his abdomen as in Fig. 7, As soon as we lay our 
hand on his abdomen we can feel instantly whether his pelvic 
bones are straight like Fig. 34 or crooked like Fig. 33. If his 
pelvic bones are like Fig. 3^, we have no use for him as a 
breeder, and put him in the shipping crate for market. If his 
pelvic bones are straight like Fig. 34, we measure the depth of 
his abdomen. If it is less than two fingers, we put him in the 
shipping crate. If two fingers or over, we examine him for pre- 
potency, and if the projection on the back of his head as in 
No. 1 plate 35, is less than an eighth of an inch behind a line 
drawn at right angles from the back of the ear, (see Fig. 41 and 



THE CALL OF THE HEN. 



93 



42)., we put him in the shipping crate no matter how good he 
is in other points. We take no chances with him because 
if we have made no mistake in measuring his head lines, 
abdomen and pelvic bones, it will be a waste of time to breed 
from him ; but if his head measures up good, we keep him as a 
prospective breeder. We say as a prospective breeder, as it is 
very evident it will not pay to raise all the cockerels to matur- 
ity. 

Plere in Petaluma where there are over 600,000 cockerels 
raised to broiler age in a season, it would be impossible to 
raise them all and test their breeding qualities. Neither is it 
necessary. If a person has a delicate touch the comparative 
value of chicks for prepotency can be judged as well when they 
are three days old as at any time later. Then again we are 
obliged to keep our chicks until we can distinguish the males 
from the females, and as a rule we will lose nothing if we keep 
them until they are at least ten weeks old, when if they have 
had the right care and feed they will be old enough to test. If 
their pelvic bones are thick at this age it indicates they are 
more or less of the meat type. If their pelvic bones are crooked 
it indicates that they never will be straight, and if they lack 
prepotency it indicates that they will always lack it, for they 
come out of the shell with this organ relatively large or small, 
just as a baby is born with a nose on its face. 

I want to impress on the reader the importance of using 
the utmost care in measuring the head for prepotency, as it is 
A^ery easy for a person to think he has measured the head right, 
when he has not done so. Especially if he has self esteem large 
he then thinks everything he does must be right. It would be 
impossible for him to do anything otherwise, than the right 
way. In my classes I have found workers in the machinist 
trade to make the most correct measurements, especially if 
they had the faculty of human nature large. While I have 
found professional men who had human nature small, to make 
the poorest measurements. This was owing to prejudice and 
not to the absence of the combination of the necessary mental 
faculties. I suppose there will always be found those who will 
<liscredit the most obvious fact, if it puts them at a disadvan- 
tage from a mental, moral, or financial point of view, but in this 
-case it would be cutting off your nose to spite your face to be 
careless in anv of these tests. 



94 THE CALL OF THE HEN. , 

I have never yet in my investigations of hundreds of poul- 
try plants found a degenerate lot of poultry, but that they were 
small in prepotency. But to return to the cockerels, as we said 
on page 169 we raised 300 cockerels the first year I was in 
California. After testing them at three months old as de- 
scribed, I found 18 that I considered worth keeping to the age 
of 9 months, when I would give them the final test. When 
they were 8 months old I tested them again, and while I found 
that they all had good depth of abdomen and good prepotency, 
that six of them had crooked pelvic bones. The pelvic bones 
on twelve of the cockerels had continued to grow straight, 
while the pelvic bones on six of them had grown crooked and 
were coming together at the points like the horns on a Jersey 
cow. I had to discard these six as breeders and send them to 
market. 

The reader will see that out of 300 cockerels I had only 12 
that were capable of improving my flock. . Last year (1912) out 
of about 1200 I had only 200 that I considered good enough 
to keep for breeders, and while all my birds have been more or 
less squirell tailed, one of last year's 200 is a very well formed 
low tailed bird. But he lacks the pure white ear lobes. He 
scores 250 egg type and I have refused fifty dollars for him. I 
am going to see if I can breed a low tailed type' of Leghorn 
m quantities that will conform to the present American Stand- 
ard and average about 200 eggs per year in large flocks. The 
reader will understand that the parents of these cockerels were 
selected with the greatest care as to capacity, type and prepot- 
ency.. Type and Prepotency are more or less hereditary traits 
or features distinguishable in the subjects, if we have the 
knowledge necessary to discern them. But the individual in- 
herent or innate potentiality of any one or of each bird cannot 
be increased or diminished by the breeder. That is to say,, 
feed and environment will not materially change the impotent 
bird into a potent bird, neither will it change the t3'pical meat 
type into the egg type bird. 

But (I hear some sarcastic reader say) we certainly can 
diminish or increase their prepotency by alternately starving 
and feeding them well. That is begging the question. You 
could affect their fecundity very readily, but what the writer 
wishes to impress on the reader is that while type and prepot- 
ency are fixed before birth, and also- the ability to govern 
capacity, and while type and prepotency can be procured onljr 



THE CALL OF THE HEN. 



95 



by selection, capacity can be governed more or less by environ- 
ment, in other words, feed, care, the right kind of houses,, 
ground, etc. We will say, for instance, the reader has a pen 
of egg type birds, both male and female, with large prepotency 
and capacity; and suppose they were all 200 egg birds. There 
would be no difficulty in raising chickens from them with the 
same degree of type and prepotency; but if he should stint 
them in feed of the proper kind and quantity while growing, 
they would lose in capacity each generation. I develop the 
capacity of both pullets and cockerels from the time they are 
three days old to the fullest extent by the most liberal feeding, 
care, and surrounding conditions. In concluding this chapter, 
I would say that the bird with the desired characteristics is 
more or less of a sport; and the value of the "Hogan Test'* 
lies in the fact that with this knowledge you can discover the 
sport and perpetuate it through intelligent breeding. Again I 
want to say here that my best cockerels measure four fingers 
abdomen at three months old. All my stock is developed as 
much as possible at this age and I try to prevent the cockerels 
from shrinking. But the pullets will develop until some of 
them are six fingers abdomen. The enclosed article from the 
Petaluma Weekly Poultry Journal emphasizes what we have 
said in regard to the feeding and care of young stock. These 
cockerels were not crammed, or penned up and fed, but were 
taken off free range and sent directly to market. I wish to 
remind the reader here that in examining the cockerels for 
prepotency he may be proficient enough in the matter to ex- 
amine them by holding them between his knees and not be 
obliged to put each one in a sack. The article follow's : 

Waiter Hogan Can Raise Chickens. 

AV alter Hogan backs up his system of selecting the good 
layers from among the poor ones, but he has never made much 
fuss about his ability as a poultry raiser. For that reason some 
people have absorbed the idea that he is more of a theorist 
than a practical man. But he now has a flock of his own, and 
evidently he is making good, for he is getting results that will 
convince any one from Missouri or anywhere else who must 
be '"shown" before believing. For instance, last week there 
was a spell of most discouraging depression in the prices which 
dealers were willing to pay for young poultry. There were 



96 '■ THE CALL OF THE HEN. 

laige arrivals of eastern poultry in San Francisco besides heavy 
receipts of California, and nobody \yante4 any more. Just the 
same, Mr. Hogan received $4 a dozen for sixteen dozen cock- 
erels just three months old, when the same dealer w^as paying- 
but $1.50 for brids of the same age. Now, what do you think 
of that? And Mr. Hogan says these cockerels were not de- 
scendants of the beef type of hens, but were hatched from eggs 
laid by hens selected as the egg type. They were not especial- 
ly fed or in any way prepared for market. They cost 22 cents 
each for feed, and thus the profit on the bunch was $21.76. 

In speaking of this matter Mr. Hogan made the point that 
if all poultrymen would pay especial attention to producing 
fine broilers for market — that is in preparing the broilers that 
they are obliged to produce in order to have a corresponding 
number of pullets — they would benefit themselves greatly. Not 
only would they get a better price for the birds, but they would 
greatly increase the demand, as many people who now care 
nothing for the common dry-meated birds would become pleas- 
ed consumers of the improved broilers. The Poultry Journal 
man knows by personal experience that the broilers turned out 
by Mr. Hogan are simply delicious when properly cooked, and 
far ahead of the ordinary article. 



<; CHAPTER XIII. 

SELECTING THE SETTING HEN. 

"How can I select the best hen for the purpose when I 
want to hatch chickens with hens?" 

The writer is asked the above question very often. It is 
a serious matter with a poultryman when he has a small number 
of choice eggs he wishes to hatch and gives them to a hen that 
is apparently setting well only to have her spoil most of them. 
He very naturally lays the cause to mites, or lice, or both. 
While it is true that the nests and surroundings must be kept 
free from mites, and the hens kept clean from hen lice, the 
trouble is not all here by a good deal. Sometimes a great deal 
of the fault lies in the hen. Some are born layers, some are 
born mothers, and some are born too lazy to get off of the nest 
at the call of nature. The hen born a typical egg type is of no 
use as a setter; neither is the hen that is born a typical meat 



*ttiti CALL OP Tkk HEN. 97 

type, she is too lazy to care for her chicks, even if she is for- 
tunate enough to hatch any and not kill them all by standing 
on them. She is too stupid any way, and the typical egg type 
hen is too nervous, and has no time to attend to them. She 
thinks of nothing but manufacturing eggs. So we will have to 
look for a hen between the above types which we have in the 
dual purpose type, with the following characteristics : 

First, she must have prepotency large: that gives her the 
mother instinct. Next, she should be in normal condition as 
indicated by her breast bone ; that is self evident, for a hen out 
of condition lacks more or less of the animal magnetism that 
is an aid to successful incubation. I need not mention good 
health as indicated by good red comb and wattles as every one 
knows that. The hen should be four fingers abdomen since 
anything heavier is more or less liable to break the eggs and 
anything less than that would not be large enough to cover 
sufficient eggs. If the hen is a three fingered abdomen, hen 
her pelvic bones should be about seven-sixteenths or one-half 
an inch thick. If she is a four finger abdomen hen, her pelvic 
bones should be about one-half inch or nine-sixteenth thick. If 
you can find hens such as described here, you will have hens 
with the mother's instinct. They will not be too lazy to take 
proper care of themselves and their chicks nor will they want 
to lay so soon as to neglect their chickens. The nearer you can 
get to procuring the above type of hens, the better success you 
will have raising chicks with them. 



CHAPTER XIV. 
SELECTING THE STOCK FOR RAISING BROILERS. 

A great many of my friends have requested me to write a 
chapter on how to raise broilers, but as there are so many ex- 
cellent books on the market that describe the process of the 
feeding, caring for and raising of broilers a great deal better 
than I could do it, I will confine myself to the selection of the 
breeding stock only. The writer has raised Light Brahmas and 
White Plymouth Rocks for years and has experimented with 
them to get the greatest amount of meat from the smallest 
amount of feed : to get the greatest weight 6f meat at three 
months old in the White Rocks, and thfc gteatest weight of 



98 



THE CALL OF THE HEN. 



meat in the Light Brahmas at maturity. In the process I have 
run up against two distinct propositions : one was a success 
from a commercial point of view, and the other, while not a 
financial success, was a success from an epicurean point of view. 
I will describe the financial proposition first. 

We will select a pen of hens from our favorite breed, or 
from Wyandottes, Orpingtons, Plymouth Rocks, or R. I. Reds. 
iThe hens must have large prepotency: they must be six or 
seven fingers abdomen, and their pelvic bones should be 5-8 
of an inch thick, in good condition. Now you have hens that 
will lay 12 dozen eggs their first laying year, and they are a 
paying proposition. Do not breed from them the first year, but 
wait until they, are over one year old. Then mate them with a 
•mature cockerel or young cock with large prepotency with ab- 
domen four fingers deep or more, and pelvic bones from one 
inch; to one and one-fourth inches thick. You should feed the 
■pen for eggs, and keep them' as healthy as possible. If, they arc 
fed right, 'you will get lots of eggs, and good healthy chicks 
capable of laying on flesh rapidly and fattening very easily. As 
a paying proposition for market broilers I have never found 
any combination that would equal it. 

But for my private use without regard to profit I would 
take the same combination as the above except that the pelvic 
bones of the hens would be one inch thick, instead of about 
5-8. This would give a broiler that would put on flesh much 
faster, consequently it would be more tender. I have raised 
broilers, the flesh of which would melt in your mouth. I have 
a few secrets in the raising of them that I have never divulged 
but may do so in a few years. 



i>i lit -^i ♦» |."4 



THE CALL OF THE HEN. 



99 






Figure 51. — The Dry Mash Hopper We Use. Closed. 




Figure 52.— The Dry Mash Hopper We Use. Open. 



lOO - THE CALL OF THE HEN. 



CHAPTER XV. 

USING THE HOGAN TEST IN JUDGING POULTRY AT 
THE POULTRY SHOWS. 

From the Live Stock Tribune, Los Angeles, California. 
(Now Pacific Poultrycraft.) 

INGLEWOOD POULTRY SHOW. 

A poultry show will be held in the Inglewood Poultry 
Colony on March 13th and 14th. This show will be the first 
of its kind ever given in the United States. All poultry shows 
that have been held in this country heretofore have awarded 
prizes according to the color, markings, and shape of the 
fowls only. The show at Inglewood will be unusual in that 
prizes will be awarded irrespective of the color, variety, shape, 
size or age of the fowls in competition. 

Birds in competition will be judged as to their egg-laying 
capacity and reproductive ability only. The judging will be 
done by the system discovered and perfected by Walter Hogan, 
and now used in practical poultry raising by the members of 
the Inglewood Poultry Colony. 

First, second, third, fourth and fifth prizes will be awarded 
to the best males and females entered from Inglewood. First 
prize being $5 cash, second prize being $3 cash, all winners 
receiving ribbons. In addition to the foregoing will be the 
Jafta Grand Prize of $25 gold, which will be awarded to the 
hen in the show which shows the greatest capacity as a layer 
combined with the ability to reproduce her kind. 

Entries for the regular prizes will be limited to fowls from 
Inglewood, but competition for the "J^fifa Grand Prize" will 
be open to all comers. Entries from poultry raisers outside 
of Inglewood will be limited to two birds each. No entry fee 
will be charged, but all birds entered will be sent at the own- 
er's risk as is usual at all shows. 

The birds ^entered will be cared for, and reshipped to the 
owners by White Wyandotte Farm, under whose auspices the 
show will be given, and to whom all entries should be sent. No 
entries will be received after ten o'clock a. m. on March 12th. 

This show will be unique in that it will present the com- 



THE CALL OF THE HEN. jqj 

mercial side of the poultry industry, to the exclusion of fancy 
breeding. Every step in the poultry business from the hatch- 
ing of the chick to the preparation of the mature fowl for mar- 
ket, and the packing of the eggs for table use will be illustrat- 
ed by actual demonstrations on the famous White Wyandotte 
Farm where the exhibition will be given. Incubators will 
hatch not less than 2000 chicks during the show, and chickens 
in every stage of development, from one day old to ten weeks 
old, will be shown as raised in the best brooders with the best 
care. .■•■.. 

There will be demonstrations. on both days of the show of 
killing, picking and preparing fowls for market, as well as of 
packing fancy eggs. The be^t and latest in poultry supplies, 
fittings and equipment will iDe shown as actually used by the" 
capable, successful men who are in the business for revenue 
only. 

No admission fee will be charged, the show being given 
for the purpose of exploiting and demonstrating the poultry 
business as it is being developed in Southern California. 

The "J^ff^ Grand Prize" is given and named in honor of 
Professor Jafia, of the University of California, who was the 
first man in public life in this state to test and verify the ex- 
cellence of the system discovered by Mr. Hogan. 

Transportation from Los Angeles to Inglewood will be 
fiee, and it is understood that the Board of Trade of Ingle- 
wood will make arrangements to take those who visit the show 
around the city of Inglewood in automobiles. 

Those who visit the Inglewood Poultry Show will sec an 
ehibition that will be more interesting by far than any show- 
that has preceded it in California, or in any other state, because 
one will have an opportunity to see, not the pedigree, but the 
money, in the chicken, and a practical way to get that money 

out. [V V <.-,. ■■:■ 



In judging the poultry show at lujglewood the manage- 
ment made the rule that all birds were to be judged according 
to tl.e condition they were in at the time they were judged. 
And while this rule may be all right in judging the fancy bird 
and the beef type bird, it will never do for the ^gg type bird 
as the rcadei will see when I relate an incident that occurred 
during the show in Inglewood, which was held in March. A 
gentleman had entered a White Leghorn hen that he .'.ad trap- 



T 
I02 "^HE CALL OF THE HEN. 

nested a : ear u^; to t::c previous November, and *hil her 
record with him. The hen scored (as near as I can reraember) 
two finders abdomen, two fingers out of condition, and 3-16 
pelvic bone, and accordmg to the rules of the show I w.i-: oblig- 
ed to give her credit for 78 eggs her first laying year, when .ic- 
cording to his trap nested record she had laid 180 eggs. He 
said she had been sick and had just commenced to improve 
shortly before he sent her to the show, and he wanted to prove 
whether or not I could tell how many eggs she had laid her 
first laying year. I told him I could not tell how many eggs 
she had laid but I could tell how many she could have! laid if 
she had been fed and cared for right, barring accidents and 
sickness. That her capacity was 190 eggs her first laying year. 
He then showed me her record which was 180 eggs. 

In the autumn of 1911 George D. Holden, ex-president of 
the American Poultry Associatiop judged the fancy, and the 
writer judged the utility birds at the Pajaro Valley Poultry 
show held at Watsonville, Santa Cruz county. Calif. In judg- 
ing that show full credit was given each bird both male and fe- 
male, as to what they were capable of doing, whether in meat 
or eggs, and for prepotency, without any regard as to how their 
owners cared for them. Or' in other words without regard to 
their condition. And the owners of the birds who were inter- 
ested in knowing were instructed how to rectify any deficiency 
there may have been in the birds. Tt seems to me this is the 
best way to' encourage and develop the poultry industry. I am 
sure the American Poultry Association coiild formulate a code 
of rules that would greatly aid in 'judging utility poultry, and 
thereby add greatly to the interest of otir poultry shows. In 
fact I am advised that siieh a proposition, is being considered 
at the time' I am writing this, July 25th- 1913. - -- i 

^.r.-:;. ;■;;. ,;! v -Cv .. CHAPTER XVI. ' ' 
STAMINA IN POULTRY. 

When I came to California and told the poultry raisers 
that I was going to take their birds and in the course of time 
breed a flock of 200 egg hens from them, they declared it 
could not be done. They said if it was possible to breed up a 
large flock of 200 egg hens, their progeny would be so weak I 
could never raise them and that their eggs would be so mis- 
shapen, and thin shelled they would not be marketable. I re- 
plied that perhaps they were right but I saw no reason why I 



THE CALL OF THE KEN. jq- 

could not do so here, as I had bred up one lot in the eastern 
states and another lot in Minnesota. Both lots were Leghorns 
and I thought it would be easier to develop Leghorns in Cali- 
fornia than in Minnesota, and I have now demonstrated in Cali- 
fornia that the following can be done : First, the 200 egg hen is 
a fact and not a theory. Second, that she can be bred and fed 
to lay as perfect an egg as any other class of hens. Third, that 
her eggs are as fertile and will hatch as strong chicks as the 
hen that does not pay for her feed. The breeder need not take 
my word for the above statements. The Frontispiece shows 
five of this type of birds that the writer bred and raised in Cali- 
fornia. These birds laid the greatest weight of eggs (131 pens 
of five birds to each pen competing, including three pens of In- 
dian runner ducks) in the National Egg Lkying Contest at the 
State poultry experiment station. Mountain Grove, Missouri, 
U. S. A., for the 12 months ending November 1st, 1912. These 
five hens laid 131 lbs. of eggs which reduced to No. 1 eggs as 
rated in Petaluma would be 229 3-5 eggs for each hen. The 
eggs these five hens laid while moulting were put on exhibition 
in the Chamber of Commerce in Petaluma and were pro- 
nounced by good judges to be as fine a lot of eggs as they ever 
saw, and that is saying a great deal, as there are more eggs 
produced within a radius of ten miles from Petaluma than in 
any other like part of the world. We have hundreds of letters 
froi;n our customers- testifying to the value of this stock, a few 
extracts of which we will introduce here, to prove to the reader 
that because a flock of hens are great layers it does not follow 
that they are of low vitality. 

EXTRACTS FROM LETTERS. 

Portland, Ore., 5-23-1912 
"Received eggs. None broken. . Very nice. Fifteen infer- 
tile out of 150." C. F. Perkins. 

L'ihue, Hawaii, 6-1 1-'13. 
Eggs arrived O. K. None damaged. Have 14 chicks 
four weeks old doing fine. Am well pleased." 

E. H. Broadbent. 
(These eggs were shipped over twenty-two hundred miles 
by rail and steamer to reach their destination.) 



I04 



THE CALL OF THE HEN. 



"Watsonville, Calif., 4-21-12. — Eggs received. Finest we 
ever had. Got 49 fine strong chicks from 64 eggs." 

Ora L. Hill. 

Vancouver, British Columbia, 5-13-12.. 
**The 100 eggs received. Express and customs ran price 
to $14.00. Am very well satisfied. Hatched 70 per cent beau- 
tiful chicks, doing well." G. W. McLelland. 

Quincy, Washington, 4-14-12, 
"Chicks received; not a dead one in the bunch, which 

speaks well for the vitality of your stock." 

H. L. Johnson, Treasurer and Manager, Quincy Lumber 

and Grain Co. J 



Victoria, British Columbia, 4-19-13. Sub. P. O. No. 1. 
"Received the 100 chicks four dead. Think that is very 
good coming that journey." James D. West. 

Salem, Oregon, 4-19-13. 
"Received baby chicks. They are just lovely; not one 
dead, which we think is great. They came in fine shape." 

Mr. and Mrs. Hayre. 

Seattle, Washington, 8-25-12. 
"Received the fourteen hundred chicks about ten weeks 
ago. There were five dead in the boxes. Have lost about 
seventy-five of them all told." 

S. K. Suttles. 

I ' :• Tucson, Arizona, 2-17-13.. , 

"Received chicks in good condition, one dead, six hundred 
and twenty-three alive and kicking." L. E. Smith. 

Reno, Nevada, 3-11-13. 
"Chicks came through fine, one dead in seven hundred, 
which speaks well for their vitality. They surely are a spry 
bunch." A. L. Rice. 



THE CALL OF THE HEN. 



105 



Reno, Nevada, 7-22-13. 
"Chicks are fine. They are the largest and best looking 
ever seen in Nevada. They are just four months and twelve 
days old. One of them laid yesterday. Every poultryman 
that sees them remarks it's too bad I haven't a thousand." 

A. L. Rice. 

The above extracts are taken from a few of the many un- 
solicited letters I have received from my customers during the 
last two years that I have been selling hatching eggs and day 
old chicks. I have repeatedly shipped hatching eggs to the 
Hawaiian Islands and as far east as Minnesota: and day old 
chicks where they would be over 72 hours on the road. Last 
season I turned down over six thousand dollars worth of orders 
that I could not fill at $10 per 100 for eggs and $15.00 per 100 
for day old chicks. 1 am aware I will have a hard time convinc- 
ing some of my readers that what I claim for the 200 egg hen 
is true, but it seems to me any progressive poultryman would 
be satisfied with the proof I offer him. I will admit that the 
eggs and chicks from the 200 egg type hens as now bred are 
not all we would desire, but that is owing to lack of proper 
knowledge of breeding. As I have said before, by using the 
"Hogan Test" the reader can breed as fine or as coarse as his 
conditions require; and by selecting only those birds with 
large prepotency he will be assured of success. 

CHAPTER XVII. 
"AT SEA OVER MATING." 

What shall it be ; The Trap Nest, Mendelism or the Hogan 
Test? 



From The North American, Philadelphia, Pa., Nov. 24, 1912. 

"At Sea Over Mating." 

America has some good layers, unheard of and unknown, 
'tis true, but we are evidently all at sea in the matter of mhng 
for egg production. 

Can it be possible that Mendel's law obtains in egg prodti.c- 
tion, just as it does in leathers and form?. Do we elim i.ite, 
according to. Mendel, tho I'acror governing certain thing? in c^i'i 
production, just as we dc m the attempt to control coionn.^- m 
birds, fowls, animals and flowers? If a son of a heavy laying 
female is mated to a non-layer and this son does not carry the 



jQg THE CALL 0!P THE HEN. 

excess of laying proclivity, do we get poor layers or good lay- 
ers? If a 100 per cent producing hen (200 eggs or more) is 
mated to the son of a 100 per cent producing female, it does not 
follow, if Mendel's law applies, that the mate to the second 100 
per cent female inherited egg-laying proclivities; therefore, 
why should the offspring of the second mating be prolific egg 
producers ? And how far back must we go to get the excess of 
female inclination to reproduction? 

Predominance of inclination exists somewhere in some 
tangible form, but we do not seem to be able to find it under 
our present system. That we will is conclusive, but we must 
do so quickly, in order to offset the growing increase of food- 
stuffs. 



The trap nest identifies and gives you the number of eggs 
a hen lays, and is absolutely necessary if we wish to line breed 
or raise pedigreed stock. The writer has studied Mendelism 
since the spring of 1910, as he has, numerous other scientific 
works in the endeavor to find something that would be of aid 
in getting out this work. I must confess that the title, "The 
Call of the Hen," was suggested while on a visit with Comrade 
Jack London, and that is all I have been able to find that has 
aided me in this case. Mendelism may be found an aid along 
the line of feathers, but I doubt if there is anything in it that 
will aid the poultryman in the selection of breeders for type, 
stamina, and the production of eggs, or meat. It may be that, 
having eyes I fail to see it. Even if there should be anything 
of value in Mendelism, it would take two or more years to get 
it out, while the Hogan Test indicates the value of a bird in a 
few minutes, at most. It looks to me as if the poultrymen will 
have to look to the trap nest, and the Hogan Test to develop 
and maintain the high scoring meat and egg producing hen. 
The best pullets can be selected at maturity by the Hogan 
Test, and then trapnested when the poultryman is breeding 
pedigreed stock: while the cull pullets, lacking in prepotency 
and other points, can be kept as market egg producers. In this 
way it will be necessary to trap nest only the cream of the 
flock, and thereby save an immense amount of labor. The cock- 
erels can also be selected at three months of age, and the most 
promising saved from slaughter. By this method poultry 
breeding will be reduced to a science, and become a pleasure 
where now it is a brain racking proposition. 



THE CALL OF TKfE HEN. fOy 

CHAPTER XVIII. 

HOW CAN I TELL A LAYING HEN? 

I am asked this question very often and in reply would 
say from a Scientific point of view it is impossible to tell the 
laying hen, except with the X-ray. I was at a place in San 
Francisco lately where this subject was brought up. There was 
a small party present, all of whom had my System. One of the 
party worked in a large meat market where they bought and 
dressed live poultry. He said that occasionally he dressed a 
hen that showed no indications of being a laying hen, but upon 
being opened an egg would be found in her. I told him the 
hens that he had described were those that laid a very few eggs, 
and laid them only in the spring. . Their pelvic bones expanded 
only while the hen was being delivered of the egg. This hen 
has practiccilly but one egg under process of development at a 
time, consequently her abdomen does not have to expand to 
make room for only one egg. Whereas the hen that lays 150 
eggs per year has a number of eggs developing at the same 
time, and her abdomen expands in proportion to her needs. 
The 200 egg hen has a still larger number of eggs developing, 
and she requires more room for them, hence her abdomen ex- 
pands in proportion. The 250 egg hen has a still larger num- 
ber of eggs of all sizes developing and her abdomen expands 
still wider than the 200 egg hen. When the hen's abdomen ex- 
pands her pelvic bones, being literally a part of and continua- 
tion of her abdomen, must expand and contract with it. When 
she is through laying for the season her abdomen contracts 
both in width and depth and the pelvic bones must come closer 
together, which they do, although there are exceptions to this 
rule. We will take the 145 egg hen, for example, of the san- 
guine temperament. She will be four fingers abdomen 3-8 pel- 
vic bone, when in normal condition, with pelvic bones of good 
shape. We draw our hand along her breast bone (keel) from 
front to rear and find her abdomen does not drop down the 
least bit below the rear of her breast bone. This hen we might 
call a normal hen. Her pelvic bones will in all probability ex- 
pand and contract in conformance with her condition of laying; 
if she was in the flush of laying her pelvic bones may be about 
one and three-fourths inches apart : later in the season, when 
she is not laying so frequently, her pelvic bones may close to 



jo8 '^^^ ^^^^^ OF THE HEN. 

about one and a half inches; and when she stops laying for the 
season her pelvic bones may close to about one and one-fourth 
inches. This will very likely be repeated each year. 

Now we will select a hen of the 250 egg type. We draw 
our hand along her keel, as with the last hen; we find she is all 
right, close built and firm; we drop her and take another 250 
^gg type hen. In drawing our hand along her keel (breast 
bone) we find a slight bagging down in the rear. The abdomen 
seems to drop below the rear of the breast bone slightly. We 
will say this is a pullet, perhaps six or eight months old. She 
is well developed and you call her one of your best hens; you 
are proud of her and have decided to set every egg she lays. 
Don't you do it. This pullet should be put in a yard with 
others of her formation, after she is sixteen months old and 
trap nested. She may stop laying any time and never lay an- 
other egg, or she may continue to lay another year or so. In 
any case she has been such a continuous layer that her frame 
has become set to that form and her pelvic bones, as it were, set 
and will contract very little. They will indicate that she is 
laying when in -fact she may not have laid for years. I have 
kept such hens until they were six years old, and spme, of 
them have never laid an egg after they were about 16 months 
still others after they were two years old. This is where a trap 
nest will save you money. When you select your hens by the 
charts 44 and 45 at 16, 28 and 40 months of age the ones that 
bag down the least bit should be put in a yard by themselves 
and trapnested to discover the ones whose ovaries have broken 
down and will lay no more. This is not difficult to discover as 
the hen that is over the 205 egg type lays, more or less at all 
times during the first two )Aears of her life, if not stimulated to 
over production her first year. 'A little learning is a dangerous 
thing', is an old saying applicable to this case. When a man 
says, "Dont Kill Tha.t Laying Hen," he should furnish you 
with an x-ray outfit that will enable you to comply with his 
request. 

The writer has used the pelvic bone proposition for over 
forty years in selecting the laying hen and has found the fol- 
lowing to be a very good method in selecting the hen that is 
not laying: The hen that scores 130 eggs her first laying year 
would measure about 7-8 of an inch between her pelvic bones 
after she stops laying for the season. The hen that scores 150 



THE CALL OF THE HKN, -^^ 

ZO9 

eggs her first laying year would measure about one inch be- 
tween her pelvic bones after she stops laying for the season. 
The hen that scores 200 eggs would measure about one and 
one-fourth inches between the pelvic bones after she stops 
laying for the season. The hen that scores 250 eggs would 
measure about one and one-half inches between the pelvic 
bones after she stops laying for the season. The 250 egg hen 
does stop more or less after her second and sometimes after 
her first season, if not cared for right: but if feed and environ- 
ment are right, she may continue to lay more or less until 
three years old, when her frame may become set. When she is 
done laying her pelvic bones may remain two inches apart. As 
hens grow older their pelvic bones become thicker during the 
winter months when they are not laying. The thickness varies 
according to their type, the typical egg type changing 
little or none, while the more pronounced the meat type be- 
comes, the more the pelvic bone changes, owing to the increase 
or decrease of flesh on the abdomen (flank) of the fowl, as it 
takes on or loses flesh as indicated by her breast bone. 

CHAPTER XIX. 

This chapter contains "Walter Hogan's System" as the 
writer wrote it. I did not write "The Walter Hogan System 
of Increasing Egg Production by Selection and Breeding." I 
furnished the notes to a literary gentleman and he wrote it 
without strict regard to the text. But I admit that I wrote 
the "'Call of the Hen" and as I claim no literary accomplish- 
ments the reader will no doubt discover the difference in the 
work. The 'Walter Hogan System' was sold under Promise of 
Secrecy which is declared null and void on the issuance of this 
book. 

Petaluma, Calif., July 31, 1913. 
.; Signed: WALTER HOGAN, 



> Aja» sar* 




Showing the "colony system" of housing hens much used 
at Petaluma. This method is inexpensive but not advisable 
where the climate is either very hot in summer or very cold in 
winter. 



THE CALt."' OF * tHB HEC" 



III 



rt.^ •r\r--:: ; /■j"frii/~ 



WALTER HOGAN'S SYSTEM 




WALTER HOGAN 
The Originator of the "Walter Hogan System 



There are two ways of selection described in this docu- 
ment. 

When hens are in flush of laying, selection by the pelvic 
bones alone is the easier way. .But when not in flush of laying, 
the pelvic bones together with the abdomen will be found the 
most ready way. (See supplement next page.) 

Please bear in mind that the hen with thin pelvic bones 
and large, soft abdomen is the heavy Qgg laying type. 

The hen with thick pelvic bones and large fleshy, fatty 
abdomen is the large beef type. 

The hen with medium, thick pelvic bones and large 
medium fleshy and medium fatty abdomen is the dual pur- 
pose type, and can be made to lay fairly well or made to pro- 
duce flesh, it being a matter of how she is fed. 



XIS 



THE CALL OP THE HHN. 



The hen with small abdomen is of small account, either as 
an egg or as a meat proposition, as she lacks the abdominal 
capacity to digest and assimilate food enough to sustain the 
every day wear of her system, and at the same time to pro- 
duce eggs, or flesh, in paying quantities. 

Everything related here applies to the male bird as well, 
only in a lesser degree. 

The remarks in regards to pullets refer to mature pullets, 
as Leghorn pullets are at five months old in the New England 
states. 

My birds in Massachusetts were bred for eggs only, for 
years, and their type became set and their pelvic bones con- 
tracted, wlien not laying, to average about 25 per cent, but I 
find that hens bred promiscuously contract about 50 per cent. 

The points to be borne in mind in using this system are 
that selection by the pelvic bones alone is best made in the 
flush of laying. 

That thin pelvic bones and soft abdomen indicate the egg 
type. 

That thick pelvic bones and hard, fleshy, fatty abdomen 
indicates the beef type. 

The size of the abdomen indicates the capacity of the bird, 
either as an egg or as a meat proposition as the case may be — - 
large abdomen, large capacity; small abdomen, small capacity. 

The same rules apply to the cockerel, cock, male bird or 
rooster, as he may be called. 

In order to determine the capacity of \a hen for egg pro- 
duction by one selection, she should be in normal condition 
and not more than a few days broody. 

The estimates in this document refer to hens about one 
year old. As a rule they will lay less each year as they grow 
older — how much less depends on the vitality of the hen, other 
thmgs considered. 

SUPPLEMENT TO WALTER HOGAN'S SYSTEM. 

If you will get a little one-foot rule to check yourself up 
while getting used to measuring with the tips of your fingers 
as in figure 4, you will have no trouble in applying its principles 
right. You can, hold the bird feet up and head down between 
your knees while you are measuring; then hold as in figure 4 
and learn to estimate the width right. Anything under one 



THE CALL OF. THE HEN. tt^ 

inch will not paj^, all over 1 1-2 inches will pay; from 1 to 1 3-8 
are doubtful; 2 inches is about' the 200-egg type, and 2 3-8 
inches about the 250-egg type and 2 3-4 inches about the 280- 
egg ?}pe. 

Hens measuring from 1 to 1 3-8 inches should be put in a 
yard while being fed well and looked over once a week at 
night in the dark for about eight weeks if you wish to make a 
careful test. Any that come up or down in measurement can 
be put in the good or bad yards as the case may be. Hens will 
go up or down about 25 per cent in measurements as they are 
in flush of laying or not. The best time to examine hens is 
after dark while on roost, which should be about 18 inches from 
the 'loor. Place left hand on back of hen, lift up tail with 
thumb of right hand and apply tips of fingers to pelvic bones. 
With a little practice you will be able to inspect 30 per minute. 
It is admitted by all Physqians, Proiessors and Students, of 
Physioiogy that I have talked with in regard to this matter 
that the abdominal capacity qf.a hen together with a strong 
v.'tai temperament has everything to do with her value as a 
laying proposition. The pelvic bones (being a continuation oi 
the body structure of the iowl and ,,., subject .to very small 
changes in the formation of flesh), are, when comparatively 
straignt and thin, an index to the wndth of the abdomei; and 
the best if not the only one we have, as they protrude from 
the body and may be easily measured. The depth of tlie abdo 
men can be taken by placing the palm of the hand crosswise 
below, between the pelvic b'dnes and the rear of the' breast 
bone. Sometimes it will be 1, 2. 3; 4, 5, or 6 fingers. ( A linger 
means three-quarters of an inch). Also place fingers between 
pelvic bones and tail bone. Somef.imes it will take 1, some- 
times 2 Angers In this way you can judge the size of the ab- 
domen which with the pelvic development will be a rule as to 
a hen's value as a layer, except in rare cases of misplaced or 
diseased organs. Sometimes a hen will have a large abdomen 
but her pelvic bones will grow crooked and come almost to- 
gether, like the horns of a Jersey cow and she will lay better 
than the distance apart of her pelvic bones will indicate but 
never will do as well as she should and should not be bred 
from. She wastes too much nervous force in laying. The farth- 
er you get away from the crow formation the better your hens 
will be. 



IIA THE. pAL^i OF„ THE HEN. 

As a rule fowls are almost twice as long coming to matur- 
ity in California as they are in the east and middle westj states. 
Wnat the reason is I suspect but do not know, but will find out 
in the next two years. 

No document purporting to be a copy of Walter Hogan's 
System is genuine without my signature as is set hereunder: 
Wishing you the best of success, I am sincerely yours, 



THE WALTER HOGAN SYSTEM OF INCREASING EGG 
PRODUCTION BY SELECTION AND BREEDING. 

It has been estimated that to add one-half dozen eggs to 
the annual producing capacity of every hen in the United 
States, would result in additional returns from our poultry 
sufficient to pay the national debt within less than a year.' Al- 
lowing this to be true, we are prepared to show that the method 
of selection and breeding herein outlined, is capable of paying 
off our great debt several times during a single year, without 
having to increase the number of hens kept a single bird, or the 
cost of keeping them a single dollar. 

The method — or discovery, we might call it — has been 
tested by the writer in every conceivable way, regardless of 
expense, time or trouble, and has been found absolutly faultless 
in every particular. It has been submitted to one government 
Experiment Station (as will be shown later) with the same un- 
erring results; and also to a number of the foremost poultry- 
men of America, who fully and without exception corroborate 
all that is claimed. 

This, you will agree with us, means a revolution in 
economical egg production. It means, too, that no poultry- 
man, however small his flock, can afford to go on in the old 
way a single year longer. 

Every animal on the farm has a well defined mission all 
its own, outside of the general one of producing meat. The 
great mission of the cow is to produce milk, the sheep wool, 
and the mission of the hen is evidently and pre-eminently egg 
production. This being the case her value varies, or should 
vary, largely with her ability to produce eggs. And still it is a 



THE CALL OP THE HEN. 



IIS 



■well known fact that, while every farm animal has been select- 
ed and bred for the best there was in it along its own peculiar 
line, and all prizes have been awarded accordingly, the hen has 
been bred largely, and prizes awarded her almost wholly, for 
feather and markings, the judges seldom or never dreaming it 
important to know whether she was capable of laying at all or 
not. 

The writer was amazed to find this state of things when, 
some years ago, he turned his attention from managing woolen 
mill interests to trying to manage a poultry yard. But, in spite 
of the fact that he was wholly unable to find bird or strain that 
were known to be exceptional egg producers, he succeeded 
within six years after starting, in building up a flock that aver- 
aged annually considerably over 200 eggs per hen. 

Before deciding to publish this work I found, after diligent 
inquiry among the leading poultrymen of the United States 
and Canada, and some correspondence reaching to other coun- 
tries, that there was no known method — other than the slow 
and costly one of trap nesting — of selecting birds of great egg 
producing capacity. Trap nesting, in addition to the faults 
mentioned, which make it almost impracticable for the farm- 
er, had a still more serious one in the writer's judgment; it 
could not trap nest roosters, which I have found to be more 
than "half the flock." For this seemingly insurmountable diffi- 
culty I have found an easy solution, and can as readily identify 
the male as the female and as unerringly. 

The facts of which this document treat are a discovery, a 
method, and a development, all in one. The happy inspiration 
and discovery came within a few hours ; but it has reached this 
workable and absolutely reliable form by a costly analytical 
and experimental process extending through years. After the 
underlying principle had been found, it had to be tested and 
proved to my own satisfaction. Then the various objections 
and criticisms, which will occur to many readers, had to be 
answered or met by actual practical experiences. 

The method enables one, First — to easily and without er- 
ror, weed out all the worthless birds from a flock; those that do 
not lay at all, also that lay so little that it is a loss to keep them. 
This alone means millions to this country. Second — to separ- 
ate just as unerringly all pullets before they begin to lay ; indi- 
cating the coming great layers, the fair layers, the very poor. 



xi6 



THE CALL OF THE HEN. 



and the Dan en. The latter will be found in nearly all flecks. 
iThird — to tell those not liable to lay when disposing of old or 
other hens for the table or market, or for other leasons. 

Beginning my investigation — as I was compelled to — with 
birds selected wholly without egg record, I was soon greatly 
impressed with the dissimilarity of formation of the pelvic 
bones and surrounding portions of the body, particularly of the 
former. Some I found nearly closed up, hard and unyielding; 
others barely admitting one finger between these points; while 
a very few would easily admit the ends of three fingers between 
the tips of the pelvic bones, and these were generally thin, 
tapering and elastic. With this clue I was not long in finding 
that my great lavers were the latter and my barren and nearly 
barren ones, the first mentioned. My atttention was next forc- 
ibly called to this by seeing a long row of dressed pullets and 
hens in a butchering establishment. Noticing the great differ- 
ence in the formation I secured the privilege of numbering the 
hens and having the entrails, as they were removed, left by the 




Cut No. 1. — A lieghorn Hen Showing This Development Has the Egg 
Laying Instinct at its Maximum 



THB CALL OF THE HUN. 



117 



side of each bird. In every instance I found my suspicion veri- 
fied; the indications of large numbers of eggs and ample 
machinery to go with them, with the wide pliable pelvic bones; 
and just the opposite condition with the narrow ones, the very] 
least, or no egg indications whatever, with the bones very close 




Gnt No. 2. — ^Tliis is a Hen of Medium Development, It is a Fair Layer:- 

together at the points and unyielding to pressure, hard, thiclcr 
and rounded in. This experiment was tried again and again^ 
with different breeds, but never with different results, 

I was satisfied I was on the right trail now, and determined 
to spare neither time nor money to make sure I was right. For 
several years following these discoveries I spent much time and 
money visiting well known poultrymen and others, frequently 
paying as high as $10 for best known layers only to kill them to- 
prove or disprove my conclusions — to photograph the live bird, 
next her dressed body, then her skeleton. In every instance I 
found my theory correct. I divided my own flock according to 
my findings into three flocks, and the very first day's lay proved 
my theory beyond question, so far as one day could, I then 
divided other and many flocks ; but wherever they were and 
whatever breed, without an exception the same result followed. 



)r« • ' . ■• ^;5'. ■ 11=;.'; '■ ■■ ■•■■I • v>^ 

Jl8 \ THE CALL OF THE HEN. 

Skipping a number of years, I, might' say right here that in 
1904, I divided the flock of Leghorns, Wyandottes and Ply- 
mouth Rocks at the Minnesota Experiment Station at Crooks- 
ton, into three pens. First — the best; second — medium — to 
poor; third — very poor or barren. I was about twenty-five 
minutes doing this in the presence of Mr. C. S. Greene, at that 
time the manager whom nearly all the leading poultrymen 
know; and Mr. T. A. Hoverstad, then Superintendent of the 
station. These gentlemen then had absolutely no faith in the 
method! not knowing anything about it; but were assured by 
me that if the barren pen laid an tgg, or either of the others 




CuL No. 3. — Hens With this Development are of Little or 
No Value as Layers. 

failed to perform as I indicated, they were at liberty to publish 
the method and me to the world as a fraud. The first day 
showed pen No. 1, 45 eggs; pen No. 2, 20 eggs; pen No 3, no 
eggs; and this continued with slight variations, the entire per- 
iod of the experiment which lasted for weeks; though not a 
single tgg appeared in the barren pen. The per cent of eggs to 



THE CALL OF the' HEN. ng 

the 100 hens for the entire time was: First pen, 60 per cent, per 
day; second pen, 37; third pen nothing. But for lack of room, 
I might give many more experiments and tests fully as startling 
as the above. 

But to go on ; within two years after selecting my first 
layers in this wav, I had a flock, the larger part of which was 




Cut No. 4.— Showing a Convenient Method of Holding Fowls 
When Testing Them. 

laying 200 eggs and above per year, individual layers greatly 
exceeding this. 

Then came another discovery, fully as important as the 
first. I noticed that, though I hatched all my pullets from the 
best layers' eggs, some of them were exceedingly poor layers, 
now and then one of them barren. I studied upon this for a 
long time; spent more money and killed many more birds. Then 
with another idea which, as suddenly as the first dawned upon 
me. I made for the slaughter house once more. I soon had a 
row of forty or so dressed male birds this time, laid out before 
me; and then at a glance I saw my long sought solution. There 
was the same great difference in the pelvic formation, found in 
the hens. I examined my roosters to find that half of them 
were absolutely worthless. Why do I say that the rooster 
*'is MORE than half the flock?" Because later I found, as 



IZO 



THE CALL OP THB HBIN. 



many know, that the female offspring take largely after the 
father, and the male offspring after the mother. It is so with 
all animals, and almost always so in the human family. Had 
I used males of my own raising, I should have done better, but 
I had not. By the way, I found -two high priced and "high 
scoring" birds used at the Crookston station in 1904, absolute- 
ly without value, and Mr. Greene now agrees with me fully 
that they were; although he was at the time quite indignant 
when I pronounced his costly beauties worthless. 

r may say here that, while I found one very good exhibi- 
tion bird in this experiment station flock that was wholly 
worthless as a layer, I am pleased indeed to be able to state 
that one bird which had taken several prizes for markings, etc., 
I found to be a priceless layer. I never saw but one bird that 
came anywhere near being that hen's equal : I found one. how- 
ever, with very poor markings that outranked any hen but 
her. 

From this time on, breeding hastened matters fully as 
much as selection, and I soon had, or rather — to be accurate — 
at the end of six years from my first start I had a FLOCK 
AVERAGING CLOSE y\ROUND 250 EGGS EACH PER 
YEAR; A FLOCK PAYING ME MORE THAN DOUBLE 
THE PROFIT MY FIRST FLOCK COULD. During the 
last few years of this period I again and again, for experi- 
mental purposes, mated excellent hens with narrow pelvic 
boned males and every time a crop of pullets that varied 
greatly in egg yield, was the result. ^ Again and again I bred 
wide pelvic boned males with narrow boned females, with the 
same results. But wide pelvic boned males with hens of the 
same formation, (with the exception now and then at far apart 
intervals, a freak), brought excellent layers. Occasionally a 
male bird failed to transmit well ; but this I afterwards found 
was only when it was wholly lacking in masculine qualities, as 
denoted by the width and depth of head and back of neck, 
with other indications common to masculinity in all other 
animals. From this time I began mating wide pelvic boned 
males with my widest hens a marked increase in the number 
of great layers was evident; in fact the third year it was the 
great exception to find anything but first-class layers among 
the pullets. 



THiE CAI.L OF THE HEN. jgj 

ITS ADVANTAGES. 

The advantages of this method for one owning even a 
small flock of birds, are so apparent that space need not be 
given to discuss it. To one having a large flock it means, must 
mean, a small fortune in additional profit, vv^ith no more labor 
or investment. To those engaged in selling eggs for hatching 
it is bound to mean everything in the near future. It would be 
simply suicidal for a farmer, or anyone depending upon the 
eggs of his flock for the profit, to be so unbusinesslike as to 
buy eggs for hatching from untested flocks. We do not be- 
lieve it would be possible to find one who would do so, after 
knowing from experiment stations and otherwise that the 
method is unfailing. 

Some of the advantages over trap nesting have been 
stated; perhaps the strongest being that we can not trap nest 
roosters. In addition I might call attention to the fact that 
trap nesting a single bird must extend over the entire year, to 
be at all accurate, and would take many times the amount of 
time it would require — by this method — to settle the laying 
possibilities of a thousand pullets. A little more time would 
settle the laying powers of a large mixed flock at mixed laying 
seasons; which might require two, or at least three examina- 
tions, a week or ten days apart. 

Again, a worthless pullet can be found when she is from 
five to six months old, and fatted and sold, without having to 
keep her a full year in order to do it safely. Besides, handling 
hens almost always tends to disturb and discourage laying. 
Trap nesting will, if persistently followed the entire year, give 
nearly the exact individual record, which is not material to one 
ep-e: man in a thousand. It can not be exact, however, as a 
shut in and otherwise disturbed hen never does her best. 

This method applies to other birds as well ; turkeys for 
mstance. Last fall I bought two turkeys for experiment. One 
was SMALL with LARGE egg development ; the other 
LARGE with SMALL egg development. The small bird has 
laid and hatched out two litters of fourteen each, the present 
season, and has at this date laid twenty-three eggs towards a 
third litter. The large one laid and hatched fourteen eggs ear- 
ly in the season, and has shown no signs of laying since; but 
has taken on much more flesh than the laying turkey. This 
would, in addition to indicating laying turkeys, also show what 



J22 vj TIIB. C^L OP THB. HEN. 

to breed, if large birds only, are desired — as would nearly air 
ways be the case with turkeys. 

The absolute surety of never killing a bird for market or 
home consumption that is laying, about to begin laying, or is 
liable to lay in the near future, is another decided advantage 
over the trap nest; and one of the quickest available advan- 
tages of the system. 

Again, the process requires no investment in patent nests, 
leg bands or other fixings, which amount — in trapnesting — to 
many times the first and only cost of this method. For accur- 
acy in all the advantages claimed for this method, we will 
most gladly submit a test with the greatest expert trap nester 
that can be selected, if it can be so arranged that some high 
authority in poultry matters or some government experimental 
station shall have charge of it. This unconditional offer we 
make to the world. 

HOW TO SELECT. 

As the basic principle of this method of identifying capac- 
ity for egg production is the width and relative condition of 
the pelvic bones and surrounding construction, it is obvious 
that exact measurements can not be given unless a distinct 
breed be designated. A Cochin lays a large egg and is built 
accordingly. A Bantam lays a small egg and its pelvic devel- 
opment, in inches, is correspondingly smaller. It would be 
manifestly misleading to apply the same measurements to the 
two birds. 

While the ability to make this allowance will come to the 
operator quickly — almost intuitively, after a very short ex- 
perience — I have thought best to confine all my descriptions 
and measurements here, to one breed of fowls only, — the Leg- 
horns, these being a medium sized, representative bird, well 
scattered over the entire country. It will be easy from the 
measurements to work up or down as the birds on hand may 
be larger or smaller. It is all a matter of comparison, and, all 
things being equal, the bird with the widest and most pliable 
pelvic bones, will be the greatest layer; while the one with 
very narrow, contracted pelvic formation will lay little, if at 
all. Behind the pelvic bones lies the egg machinery, and it will 
be found more abundant and roomy the wider the bones. 



THE CALL OF THE HEN. j^^ 

SELECTING PULLETS. 

(Leghorns.) 

Perhaps the best time to select layers for a flock is when 
the pullets are from four to six months old. If all are in a 
uniformly thrifty condition at this time, it is next to impossible 
to make a mistake. The best pullets at that age should show 
a width of about two inches, while the best matured laying 
hens should show a development of about two and one-eighth 
inches. See cut No. 1.) 

Pullets of Plymouth Rocks and their class should be se-' 
lected about a month later, and then show slightly larger; 
about two and one-eighth inches. The best Asiatic pullet 
about two and one-fourth at seven or eight months old; the 
Leghorns being earlier maturers. At the end of six years o£ 
careful selecting and breeding, I found my Leghorn pullets 
quite as wide and well matured at four months as my first 
ones were at five months. 

Second class Leghorn pullets from five to seven months 
old will show a development of about one and five-eights 
inches. (See Cut No. 2.) 

At six months old, all Leghorn pullets showing only an 
inch or less pelvic development should be discarded regard- 
less of feather or comb. They will never make layers. (See 
Cut No. 3.) 

All things being equal, the earlier a pullet begins to 
lay, the better and longer will she lay. 

SELECTING MATURE LAYERS. 

The next best time to ascertain a hen's laying qualities 
is when the whole flock is in the flush of laying; in other 
words, when about all are at work. Those found then io meas- 
ure about two and one-eighth inches are extremely good lay- 
ers. Some flockr have very few of these priceless birds in 
them, while omers have good numbers. From cUis class of 
layers, and above that measurement, and from these only, 
should eggs be saved for hatching. 

Occao'onally hens are found measuring as high as tv/o and 
three-fourths jnches. These hens with the best of care will 
lay as high as 280 eggs per year. Those measuring about two 
and three-eights may be depended upon to go as high as 250. 



124 '^^^ CALL OF THE HEN. 

The fact that tliis kind of hen can be found is ample 'proof that 
with proper s.election they can be bred in large numbers. 

Hens found at this time measuring from one and seven- 
eights to two inches are real good layers, and should not be 
discarded if one wishes to build up an at all large flock; but 
they should not be bred from. Hens, in the flush of laying, 
measuring only one and one-fourth to one and one-half inches, 
arc poor; and those showing from an inch down should be 
discarded regardless of shape or color. 

A large enough flock of the first mentioned hens would 
make any poor man rich. The second kind would keep them- 
selves and their owners going; while many of the last named 
class would make a rich man poor. 

Poor layers kept well and fed a large variety of scraps 
and other foods, will sometimes make pretty fair egg records 
for a short time; and birds of the best quality, under exception- 
ally hard conditions, will make poor records. There are also 
occasional freaks in both extremes of measurements, but they 
are so infrequent as to not be at all important. Approximately, 
280 Qgg hens that measure as high as two and five-eights 
inches in the flush of laying, will show about three-eights to 
one-half inch less when not laying, and this shrinkage in 
measurement, will apply to all other grades in about this pro- 
portion. 

SELECTING FOR FALL MARKETING. 

We do not like to kill birds about to begin laying, that 
are laying, or really good ones that are just through laying; 
particularly when there are plenty in the flock that do not 
come under any of these heads. 

In this alone, the cost of this method, when once well 
understood, can be saved several times in a single season with 
a good sized flock of birds. 

While the exceptionally good layers can be told readily 
and at almost any time, laying or not, and an absolutely worth- 
less bird can be told the same way, there is a time, just when 
the real good layer is resting and the common to poor layer 
is doing her best, when they come — for a short time only — ■ 
close together in pelvic appearance. 

While it is not safe to kill a bird that measures one and 
one-eighth inches or over, it is possible for a very fair layer to 



IMH CALL OF THE HEN. jj- 

not be much wider than that at the close of laying out her lit- 
ter. Some good layers, that in the flush of laying will meas- 
ure one and three-quarters to two inches, at the close of their 
laying period will sometimes close up to about one and one- 
eighth inches. A very poor layer in the flush of her laying 
lime, might be one and one fourth to one and one eighth in- 
ches, so care must be taken at this period not to con- 
found the two conditions, which do not exist at any -other 
time. This is referred to in the introduction. To wholly pre-, 
vent this — when it is desired to save every at all good layer — 
it is well to make two, or possibly three examinations, a week 
or so apart. In this way there will be no danger of confound- 
ing the one about to begin laying, with the one about to quit; 
and the poor layer can be told from the good one. 

When killing a whole flock at two or three years old, as 
many do, no hen measuring one and ©ne-eighth inches and un- 
der is worth keeping; particularly is this true if the birds have 
been well fed and stimulated to about their full capacity. No 
hen of any value for egg production will have an egg in her at 
this time and measure so small unless she is a slow, infrequent 
layer at her best. Sometimes this kind of a hen with very 
small measurements will be found laying an occasional egg late 
in the season. 

SELECTING ROOSTERS. 

We have said how important it is to have males of the 
right formation, to mate with the great layers for breeding 
purposes. We need not emphasize this. It is so evident that 
we can not trap nest a rooster, and equally so that years of 
trap nesting hens can be ruinously upset in a day by crossing 
with an inferior male, that it would reflect upon our estimation 
of the reader's intelligence to say more about it. 

I have found Leghorn roosters, that measured one and 
tlifee-fourths inches, but they are rare and priceless. A good 
m-itured bird should measure one and one-eighth inches and 
a pretty fair one an inch. I would not use one that measured 
less if I could possibly help it. Many fine looking birds meas- 
uie only one-half inch, but such ones will ruin the offspring of 
the best layers, and should be discarded whatever their quali- 
fications in feather, tip of comb or anything else. 

Now and then the objection reaches us that the high type 
roosters referred to can not be found. I have found them as 



OCT 15 1918 

126 THE CALL OF THE HEN. 

ethers have, and I believe there are nearly or quite as many in 
proportion as there are of the 250 and above hens; but we do 
not save all the roosters as we do all the pullets, and they are 
correspondingly scarce among mature males. By selecting al- 
ways from large numbers of males before they are killed off, 
this objection will be largely and quickly overcome. 

The fact that males of this class can be selected, is of it- 
self a discovery sufificient to revolutionize the whole poultry 
business without the examination of a single hen — were time 
enough taken — but the two together bring absolute and imme- 
diate results. 

In the hands of a slightly exjperienced or art at all com- 
petent person, the element of chance is entirely removed by 
this method of selecting layers and males; (and one is just as 
sure of the results sought as that a hen will die if her head is 
cut off. 

We ask but one thing; that judgment be withheld till this 
method be tried. If the tests are fairly conducted there can be 
no failure. 

Crude infringements and imitations of this discovery and 
system — as of everything else of value that has cost years of 
investigation and experimenting — are liable to spring up, but 
the safety and economy of going direct to the fountain head 
need scarcely be suggested. 

Dated November 20, 1904. 

THE END. 



